Recently, a black bear was sighted on Cape Cod. This is a big deal because we don’t have bears here! (Another unadvertised perk!) Anyhow, the experts believe the bear swam across the Cape Cod Canal and walked from one end to the other. He was captured a few miles into his return trip, and (allegedly) returned to the wild on “the other side” of the bridge.
This event had me think about animals that make me nervous. Bears certainly make me nervous. They are big and often hungry when they are close to people. Hungry bears are aggressive. I wouldn’t want to mess with a hungry bear.
Bats make me nervous, too. Especially when they’re in my house. As the nasty rodent was flying around, all I could picture was it nesting in my hair!
Last year, shortly after the bat visit, a baby owl fell from it’s nest and was trapped in my backyard. I couldn’t go outside to rescue it myself, so I guess I’m afraid of owls. Especially baby owls, the size of a Mr. Potato Head.
As our country continues to consume, and build on the land that was once the habitats for many “wild” animals, it will become more common for humans to encounter wild life. I don’t think I like that. These creatures have scared me enough!
Which animals make you jumpy and nervous?
What what NaBloPoMo is all about? NaBloPoMo, created by the brilliant minds at BlogHer, is a month long blogging challenge to encourage you to write daily about a specific prompt. Today’s prompt was “Which animals make you jumpy and nervous?” Although sign ups to participate in this month’s Blog Roll have closed, the daily prompts are available here.
Humans scare me more than any other animal. There unfortunately won’t be many other species left to encounter if we keep up our current sprawl.
I can’t stand bats. I have sat in my car in the garage for over 30 minutes at night waiting for my teenage don to come home. I was positive it would attack me when I opened the car door. Of course it was gone when my son looked for him and I am still teased 5 years later.
eek! bat’s! I have never seen one in real life and do NOT want to!
Coyotes frighten me! We live near BeeBee Woods in Falmouth and there is a lot of wildlife that is constantly roaming thru our yard and carports. But I was really frightened one evening when I cam out to go get something from the car and a pack and by pack, I mean 10+ coyotes were just lounging on the road by the carport! Needless to say, I try not to venture out after dusk anymore!
I use to think birds but I’m with Megan – humans, definitely humans!
Megan, Humans is a great answer….but there are not many of natures animals that make me jumpy, but even as a guy, a large spider will ruin my day. Still don’t know how I made it in the Army with all the field operations, and being in nature, and ones I came across in Desert Storm/Shield. But they give me the heebee jeebees!!
cockroaches freak me out, but I do feel very sad about the fact that we push the animals away so that they have to come to our areas to survive!
I came across a brown bear on the roads to the Outer banks over 10 years ago. Scared me even though I was in my car but it WAS on the road. It is good when humans are scared of animals hopefully we are less likely to make them angry.
Ok, I have to agree with the bats thing. I saw some pictures recently of humongous bats that freaked the heck out of me, and now my husband makes fun of me for it. Here’s a couple of those pics. ugggghhh!!!
I saw a big black bear up in Yosemite a few years ago. He was a couple hundred feet away grabbing a fish out of the river. He looked so gentle and sweet. I imagine if we were closer to him, he would have looked quite a bit different – like large and scary.
I’m not scared of birds in general, but I had an experience once where I walked into my kitchen and saw a bird perched on my window sill. When it saw me, it started darting around my kitchen really fast – this really freaked me out. I was able to get him to fly into my daughter’s bedroom, we closed the door, then took out the screen from her window. He flew out of the window about 10 minutes later – phew!! It is not fun being trapped in a small room with a scared bird. Trust me.
I grew up appreciating wildlife — from afar. The San Diego Zoo and San Diego Wild Animal Park (now called Safari Park) were monthly trips we took as kids. But when we went camping …. oh, all the critters we fell in love with!! Waking up to find wild cattle eating from your trashcan. Accidentally catching a fish with your bare hand while trying to rescue your flip flop from the river. Watching the bats swoop in at dusk to feast on the bugs. Amazing.
Since moving to the middle of nowhere at the end of a dirt road along the bottom of a desert hillside, I have kept a running list of the critters we have encountered. Some loved, some feared!! Roadrunners, a family of quail that made our hillside their home, a local pack of coyote, and praying mantis are on the AWESOME side of the list. Yes, we find coyote awe inspiring rather than fear-striking. They’re just hungry dogs that are more afraid of us than we are of them. And their howls are hauntingly beautiful. But snakes, scorpions, tarantulas, and vinegaroos are on the SCARY side of the list. They can stay away – PLEASE! The snakes I can understand, and I try to relocate them before my dogs eat them. But 6-8 legged critters FREAK ME OUT!! I found a Wolf Spider in my guest bathroom trashcan one day and just about had a heart attack!! Luck for me, my teenager enjoyed zapping the heck out of it with our tennis-racket-bug-zapper. Ew. Ever smelled burning spider?
When I lived in Alaska, the moose scared the living daylights out of me. They are huge, my big bad husky dogs were behind a fence and too stupid to realize taunting the moose wasn’t a good idea since they could trample the fence in a heartbeat. Mayhem would come in when I called, but Mischief was dumb as a post and I would have to go carry him in.
The scariest sight ever (of an animal) was during movie night we were all in the den watching and hear a thunk against the window. BIG UGLY MOOSE FACE smashed up against the window. Not attractive and wicked scary.
On the plus side, there’s a moose in my driveway and can’t get the car out and girls can’t get to bus stop was a valid excuse for missing school. 😉
I love your story about the bear and yes they would scare me up front but i love bears i have ever since i was little not to sure that i would want to see one up front because i have seen on tv and in articles what they can do to humans and its not a pretty site…the baby owl poor lil guy how cute but they to can shred you like no tomorrow….but they are so cute and fluffy…about the only two things that freak me out is magots and cock roaches they have me running for my life i just cant oh yuk….cant stand them….even a fly is yuk to me…cause i know what comes out of it…especially when you have kids…its even more scarier …
ooohh! I didn’t even think about bugs. Bugs, in general, and spiders freak me out. However, I don’t think that anything will ever scare me as much as the bat did!