what you find when out walking

When you are walking or driving in the countryside its always pleasant to come across something rare or unusual .I have come cross dead foxes,badgers ,rabbits etc as well as live ones,especially in those quite corners of nowhere .We once were walking on a very hot day with the dogs a collie and a black lab up through a wood at up cerne,this was a few years ago,it was boiling and the grass was really dry,the time being midday in summer.We came across a badger making his way up embankment unaware we there,a little later we were crossing a field and I looked to the left at what I thought was a black post which my husband was pointing to, in hushed voice saying he had seen it move,with that the head turned the eyes yellow with slits. looked at us,(good job it was a little way off) I indicated we better move slowly but with haste out of sight into the lane ,make what you will but I think it might of been  a big cat and not your domestic feline type,and I haven't seen anything like it since.

Hi flowering rose, I don't do a lot of walking but when ever I do I always see something interesting and different and not expected.

I  found a toddler once at the edge of a country lane ,He let me pick him up and I went to the first cottage some way down the lane,(the lane was stony and ditches both sides) and the lady did not the toddler and we walked half a mile down the lane to a cottage where a car with a door was open in the drive way.The mother came out in total shock she thought he was still a sleep in the car seat,she burst into tears.I was glad to get the baby back to his mum but he could easily have disappeared into nowhere. 

I've never seen or found a spare toddler, that is very unexpected

I'm happy with buzzards, rabbits or some fungi.

I'm sure the mother was very relieved

Years ago I was driving from my folks back to the farm I lived on and was going along a coastal road. I came round the corner to find a large black animal in my lights in the road. It was the size of an alsatian and the light caught its eyes they were yellow like a cat. I never saw it again but it leapt on all fours over a hedge of about 4 foot in height and bounded off across the fields.  I got the fright of my life. 

Before I left the farm i used to walk down the river everyday. Saw badgers, otters, foxes, buzzards, salmon, trout, deer, and sometimes owls used to sit in front of my cottage. I saw a pine martin in October last year just before I took the bike off the road. I almost ran the wee devil over. He ran out, sat up and then watched me swerve round him.

Sam, a friend of mine had a very similar experience about 25 years ago in Mid Suffolk/Waveney area, with a large black cat leaping 'sideways' over a hedge.  

And I've seen a 'black panther' - it was early in the morning in late August - the cat was walking though a field of straw bales so I could easily tell that it was much bigger than the bales - it was in the area between Grantham and Nottingham (but I wasn't walking, I was a passenger in a car, so it doesn't count!) .

The black cat we saw at Up Cerne was big and that very hot day was sitting sunny himself ,and we were afraid that day.At Churchill on the mendips where I ride we had a scare for awhile of a big cat,which in fairness it could hide very well there but it was never caught and we never saw it out riding.as for finding a toddler,well its the only one I found in a country lane others have been wandering roads in town!

About a year or so ago I was walking my 2 dogs in the woods (Blackstank Woods) opposite Ben Rinnes in Banffshire

Came round the bend, and saw a dead deers head in the pathway (well I guess it would be dead I hear you cry)

Didn't phase me, but I thought it quite gross that the poacher / hunter had obviously just taken the carcass minus the head.  Strangely enough also, was that my 2 dogs just walked straight past it

Me neither Glendinning

I often hear shooting from where I live, but it goes with the territory I guess.  I have to bite my tongue very hard

Oh that is so sad re:  your cat hopefully that degenerate will get his come-uppance soon !!  I put a fluorescent jacket on my 2 dogs at all times now when out walking, I hate guns, and far too many are trigger-happy in my mind, but it does restrict sometimes where we can walk, and that annoys me.

There are lot of dis-tasteful people about who do despicable things to humans and animals,I hope one day they will get justice met out on them.I have seen to the results of poachers and the like.My mother had a badgers set in her field that had been there for decades,my brother heard voices one night and next morning the sett had been dug out and badgers no-more.

That's disgusting! 

I don't understand why people feel the need to tamper with things that are nothing to do with them. There are very few badgers as there are. I remember the animal rights people released mink into the river Tyne, just below my old cottage. They destroyed everything and it took years for the river to recover. They said 'Free the Mink' but didn't think if the consequences. 

too true,same as when people decided to dump terrapins in ponds and rivers,its not fair on the terrapins or the wildlife around.

when i lived on the outskirts of Melton  Mowbray the local streams and smaller rivers were losing most of there native crayfish to the introduced (illegally) i think they call them  North American Signal crayfish which were killing them,they can grow quite large and have a good nip

Cheers all Alan