reaction? It walked closer, presumably having encountered humans before
and expecting food, eyeing my hat hungrily. This was very sweet but we
worried for its safety, and that of my hat. My next move was to 'shush' and
wave my hands. At this the deer skipped away, then wandered back, like it
was a game. After I repeated this exercise with more energy it eventually went
into the woods, very reluctantly!
Quite often sightings took place when we were walking on our own, such as
the deer, and it was certainly more special when we were the only people to
see the creatures we 'discovered'. The moments seemed more magical, partly
because there was no one there to say 'oh, a lesser spotted hornswaggler, we
see those all the time'.
This was exactly the case when we went on a short nature walk on a
campsite in Elberta. At the end of the walk were a wooden jetty and a river.
The trees flanking the river were full of huge brown birds of prey, literally 30-
40, out of proportion with their surroundings and a surreal sight so close to
civilization. We spent some time trying to photograph them on the wing, then
headed excitedly back to the campsite to ask if they were buzzards – our best
guess. The disinterested response to our giddy-school-child question? 'Yes'.
One of our most exciting discoveries was in Vermillionville, the
museum in Lafayette. As mentioned earlier, we spotted a dark coloured
creature, about the size of a cat skulking by the river. As we got a little closer
we saw it looked like a mutated beaver or otter, as far as we could tell in the
second or two before it did what most wild animals do and turned tail and ran.
Unfortunately this 'find' soon lost its romance when we were told: first, they