#animal refuge

[nonovyabuisness]

Hey, funny story that just happened a few minutes ago.

So it’s 11pm and I’m feeling down and therefore unable to sleep.

So I decided to clear my head by having a stroll in the public park near my apartment. I get dressed, take my phone,AirPods, keys as well as my pepper spray that looks like gun just in case.

( I already did this before once at 12pm- 1am and nothing had gone wrong. I just eavesdropped on a couple breaking up in the parking lot before the entrance of the park.)

So I’m casually strolling through the park which has areas that have a dense but manageable forest. And I decide to take the small off-trail path that pass through said areas like I did last time.

( Last time I deviated, my phone’s flashlight illuminated two cats’s eyes which scared me before I remembered seeing them near my apartment.)

But this time, I continued on the path further off-trail wondering where it lead. Until I heard a mix between a growl and a bark. I immediately assume it’s a dog (either belonging to someone or a wild dog) and I backtrack while holding my pepper spray and occasionally checking behind me to see if it’s following me.

I quickly get back on the main path and take a break to look at the starry sky (that is surprisingly clear for being in the city) before I decide to head back.

Then as I walk, I heard the growl/bark again. Terrified.I put my flashlight on the highest setting, take out my pepper spray with my finger on the trigger and slowly continue to walk to the illuminated crossroads while pointing the flashlight and looking in the direction of the noise.

A few steps forward and I find out that it’s in fact not a dog but a wild boar. Which makes it worse.

Because a wild dog will most likely flee the second I move, but a boar will either flee or charge me.

So I’m just frozen on the spot having a staring contest with the f*cking boar, before I regain control over my body.

I think I twitched when that happened and the boar (who had its head down like it was preparing to charge) ran off.

I then immediately headed back to my apartment and am now writing this.

I don’t know if there is more than one boar. But, I think it was the same one I heard before and it followed me discreetly.

Unfortunately for you all, I froze up completely and couldn’t take a picture of it and I frankly don’t want to try.

Anyway, since it’s a public park in the middle of the city where people take their kids and walk their dogs, I’m gonna contact the closest animal refuge to give them a heads up.

I don’t want to feel responsible when either a kid or a dog ends up running into it and possibly injuring themselves or the boar.

But, what a way to see a living wild boar in real life. I live in France, Montpellier (a rather major city especially for college/university students). So that was unexpected.

For anyone wondering what the boar looked like when I was staring at it, have an exemple.

Also this is what my pepper spray looks like,

Have a good night everyone !

[spoopdeedoop]

king and harbinger, old and young

[loveisinthebat]

Hands you a Her

[rebeccathenaturalist]

I took advantage of the last not-rainy day for a while and spent a couple of hours birding and otherwise enjoying nature at Oaks Bottom Wildlife Refuge in SE Portland. This is quickly becoming one of my favorite close-in nature areas, and was a great place for waterfowl watching! I got to see common mergansers fighting over food, northern shovelers and green-winged teal dabbling in the shallows, American wigeons and gadwalls keeping a more wary distance, and--best of all--I finally got to see my very first western screech owl! Two, actually, though one was basically just visible as the edge of a wing sticking out of a crevice in a tree, but the other one was fully in view while snoozing in a hollow.

There was also the requisite amount of Portland-esque graffiti, plenty of mosses and lichens, and SO MANY VERY GOOD DOGS. I decided to head back to the car once the crows started flying overhead en masse to head to the Park Blocks downtown to roost in the trees overnight, but I'll be going back soon.

[sitting-on-me-bum]

Bison graze in the snow at Rocky Mountain Arsenal National Wildlife Refuge, near Denver.

© Michael Levine-Clark / Flickr

[zishu-arts]

SJCHSBCUSCBUSCB THE FREEVIC BRAINROT TOOK OVER

[wandering-jana]

Great Blue Heron.

Harris Neck National Wildlife Refuge, Georgia.

July 2024

[jadafitch]

Egg Rock Light, Frenchman Bay, Winter Harbor, Maine. Until the lighthouse was built in 1875, Egg Rock was known for its massive amount of sea bird nests. Today ownership belongs to the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, and is managed as part of the Maine Coastal Islands National Wildlife Refuge. If you're boating about the Bar Harbor area, be sure to be on the look out for the numerous harbor seals and black guillemots that are usually loitering around the lighthouse today.

[asterwild]

Whooping crane (Grus americana), a large crane species native to North America. Populations decreased after European settlement due to hunting and habitat loss, and in 1941 there were only 15 adults remaining in the wild. Thanks to decades of conservation work there are now over 500 in the wild and additional birds in captivity. You can read more about them from the USFWS here.

[ambermaitrejean]

Scorchin' on the plains. August in Rocky Mountain Arsenal National Wildlife Refuge. Commerce City, Colorado. Photos by Amber Maitrejean

[40viewscollection]

Tribunal? Conseil d'administration? A.G.?

Dany ERDOCIO

[typhlonectes]

A family of Emperor Geese at Yukon Delta National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska. 

via: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

[queen-mabs-revenge]

i might have kitties a week from now

[rebeccathenaturalist]

I'm back on the coast for a couple of days for the Wings Over Willapa birding and nature festival! Yesterday I renewed my role as a nature guide for the annual barge trip over to Long Island to see the thousand year old western red cedars in one of the last remaining old growth in this region; there was a plethora of fungi, along with at least two species of slime mold! I will never, ever get tired of that place.

Then this morning I led a hike around the Cutthroat Climb trail (named for the cutthroat trout, which spawns in the creek there.) More beautiful forest with some surprisingly late wildflowers like three leaved foamflower, and a rough skinned newt. I was wondering what to do with my afternoon, and then a couple weeks ago someone booked a private guided nature tour with me here, so that answered that question and gave me a chance to take them around Porter Point (also part of Willapa NWR) for even more forest and fungus fun. I'm about to get ready for tonight's event keynote speaker, Marina Richie, author of Halcyon Journey: In Search of the Belted Kingfisher.

[sitting-on-me-bum]

Crabeater seal at Palmer Station

A crabeater seal lounging at Palmer Station, Antarctica. Despite their name, crabeater seals only eat Antarctic krill and use their specially shaped teeth to filter out the seawater.

Credit: Mike Lucibella/NSF

[wandering-jana]

Savannah National Wildlife Refuge

South Carolina