What was your most memorable wildlife viewing moment?

[TDAS04]

What was your most memorable sighting of one or more animals in the wild?

Mine easily was during the boat trip I took off of Alaska, when I saw a humpback whale with her calf, as well as a pod of killer whales.  (I did not get to see the killer whales attack the humpbacks.)  There were also several dolphins and porpoises.

One other memorable animal sighting was in when I saw a moose for the first time in Montana.

[Lief 🗽]

When we went to Sea World in 5th grade, we saw two whales having sex.

[TDAS04]

I'm having a memorable moment at this very second.  There are two hawks sitting outside my home, and my cat is chattering at them.

[Dixie Reborn]

Seeing a heard of Bison run across Yellowstone.

[Atlas Has Shrugged]

While going out into the woods with my uncle early one morning (about 3:30 AM) to go hunting, we came face to face with a deer that was about ten feet away from us. I've also seen a few sharks in the intracoastal, including one which made it up the side canal where my house is.

[Fed. Pac. Chairman Devin]

I saw a moose dip its head in the water, then come up and look at us.

[HagridOfTheDeep]

Killbear Provincial Park. My family was at the bathroom and it was basically pitch black because the campfire was pretty much done. It also happened to be the night of Susana's speech at the Republican convention in 2012, so naturally I was streaming the thing from 3G onto my laptop. My parents weren't too impressed.

Anyway, halfway through her speech I hear someone shout "BEAR," and two seconds later I hear these thunderous footfalls in the patch of trees beside our campsite. A sapling comes crashing down and almost lands on me, and I know the bear is literally feet away. I actually never saw the thing because it was so dark and my eyes were adjusted to the laptop screen, but I damn-well heard it. I never yelled so loud in all my life.

[Miles]

The first week of my Junior year at LSU, it was raining the whole week. It was pretty depressing actually. I was walking home from the gym one night; I walked over a bridge and looked down. I saw a pelican floating down in the creek. It caught my eye because it was bright white and it stood out against the gloomy, rainy environment. It seemed pretty cool.  

[retromike22]

When I went to Yosemite Nat'l Park with my family in a cabin. We decided to bring a frozen DiGiornio pizza to make. Once it was done we looked outside and our cabin was surrounded by at least 6............ deer. They came up and were tapping at the door because unbeknownst to us, Yosemite deer love DiGiornio pizza. Eventually we scared them away.

[Joe Republic]

I'm bumping this thread because look who was enjoying a breakfast of apples straight from the tree this morning, on the roof of the shed in my own back yard!

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

Bears eating most of our food on a camping trip.

[afleitch]

Seeing golden eagles on Arran.

[FT-02 Senator A.F.E. 🇵🇸🤝🇺🇸🤝🇺🇦]

A mamma black bear and her cubs in the driveway while my family was getting ready to leave from a rental house in the Smoky Mountains to go hiking. I blame my uncle dumping spoiled rice the night before for attracting the bear family.

[FT-02 Senator A.F.E. 🇵🇸🤝🇺🇸🤝🇺🇦]

I think this also counts

[Mexican Wolf]

Got quite a few I remember pretty well:

1. On a snowy June day in Yellowstone National Park, an adult bison climbed up onto the elevated boardwalk and started walking down the planks about 20 feet or so ahead of me and my family.

2. A stray peacock somehow got up onto the second-story roof of my house and was walking around up there. I can't remember who eventually got him down from there and how, though.

3. I went on an all-day boat tour off the west coast of Kaua'i once, and as the catamaran cruised up the coast, spinner dolphins came up and started leaping up from and splashing down into the water just in front of both bows.



(Two images culled from a 5 and a half minute video I recorded of about 20 or so dolphins swimming with the boat.)

[Damocles]

I put popcorn on my head. A jay came and landed on my head and ate it, then flew off.

[Crumpets]

I've had quite a few, including bears, whales, moose, elk, orcas, and bison. One of my very early memories is driving through Yellowstone and my dad having to stop the car because a bison was walking right at us and ended up brushing against our car window. All I could see was fur. I think I may have also seen a grizzly bear the last time I was in Yellowstone (didn't know how to distinguish it at the time from a brown bear, but still pretty confident it was a grizzly looking back on it) in pretty ideal killing machine viewing conditions - directly across a deep river. I also had a nice one recently of seeing a herd of elk outside the town of Snoqualmie last month:



If there's any one that I would call the "most memorable," it was probably going whale watching in Hawaii. It didn't have the magic of the unexpected encounter, but we were able to hear whale songs live and saw lots of other cool animals like dolphins and sea turtles along the way.