The most extraordinary things you have experienced in nature

[FreeDiver]

Here's something I've had a chance to experienced in nature and that's being able to see fireflies in real-life. I go to pigeon forge TN, once a year and get to see fireflies buzzing around and lighting up as I hike through the smokey mountains at night. Although they only light up for less then a second. they light up about as bright as a single fairylight bulb on a string of Christmas lights.

 

[Ezra]

One time I was sitting cross-legged at a park that had a lot of geese. A Canada goose came up to me and eventually was sitting in my lap while I petted it. Ducks and geese become pretty fearless and friendly when you are feeding them, but this was something else.

 

[Forest Cat]

I have taken a bat to the face two times. Both times I was removing external window shutters. The bat was hiding between the wall and the shutter, so when I lowered it something flew right into my face. For a moment we were eye to eye and it slapped me with its wings.

But the craziest thing I experienced was running into a bear. I was in the forest and suddenly something made a lot of noise not far away, like small trees being pushed over and broken.

And then I heard bear sounds, they make a snorting sound. Then I realized the wind was blowing from me towards the bear. I have to admit I was not very brave, I did some quick thinking and ran as fast as I could towards my car. I was relieved when I slammed the door shut behind me. You usually don`t meet bears in that area so it was surprising.

 

[Catherine Read]

I love nature. I remember once, on a trip out to Kenya, I was minding my own business eating a bag of Haribo when some monkey's noticed I had food. One climbed one shoulder, another climbed the other, I had a few monkeys holding on to my waist and some reaching down from an arch above. I was effectively being mugged by them lol. I remember some other tourists recording me, I recognised the situation as being potentially dangerous as they were wild after all, but they eventually got bored and wandered off. On another day, this particularly large one, I called Bruno, ran for me and slapped me across the legs, I think to show off to the girls how brave he was.

Feeding the monkeys something a bit more suitable on another day (old photos and bad quality).

 

[Luca]

The most extraordinary and bizarre thing in nature I’ve ever witnessed is how dogs seem to be so consistently drawn to me.

Literally all the time, a dog will come up to me and the owner is like “he/she bites” or “he/she is not friendly” and the dog will just jump into my lap or lick me!

Dogs that are aloof or indifferent to most people often warm up to me in a matter of minutes.

All of my clients have told me, independently of each other, that I am their dog’s favorite person.

Dogs are obviously a better judge of character than people are, but that doesn’t completely explain why they get so attached to me. It’s really special.