Critters on the road..pics or stories

MacDoc

MacDoc

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Riding in Australia has its shares of quirks...one of them of course is kangaroos but then also there are many areas where there are no fences......one reason so many vehicles have bullcatcher bars on the front....even school buses.

This was unusual on one trip

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and this was an hilarious stand off between tractor, riding buddy and protective bull.

Okay that's pretty big maybe we should move
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The bull figured out he'd seen off the tractor so the little noisy thing would be a snap.



A few blips on the throttle got the way cleared tho I was killing myself laughing at the by play.
The cows were all huddling indecisive and a young one panicked and tryed a fence leap not too gracefully.

Roos are always a risk - they are incredibly fast ...I was ambling along a dirt road at 45 kph or so ( 30 mph) and two greys paced me then accelerated cutting across the road in front of me effortlessly.

This is a big grey lurking in the shade at Mount Mulligan....looks ready to take me into the back alley and kick the **** out of me for disturbing his siesta. Glad it was the long lens.

They are not people shy
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and will defend themselves.....roo o'clock is the time of day they generally get off the roads and into the shade....but yah never know.

In Canada and the US lots of deer and one bear running across on 144 in PA....first thought it was a big black dog...

Narrow miss with three overweight turkey buzzards that did not lift off quick enough....buddy behind figured there was only a couple inches of clearance between me and the big bird....I ducked of course....that would have been ugly.

I recall one rider on this forum ran OVER a deer that fell back on to the road after it tried to climb a bank down near Kettle Creek...that must have been a serious adrenaline hit.

Stories? Pics?
Unusual road hazards?
 
No pic, but a wild turkey came close to hitting me. Came around a corner, it was standing on the road, or beside it, but it decided to get itself into the air by flying across my path. If I hadn't been holding onto the handlebars so tightly, I could have reached out and touched it.
 
Hmmmm...good info - I've often driven by turkeys along the road and they scamper in to the bush...I'll be a tad warier.

The "exciting" encounters ...no pic...too busy surviving. :D
 
A few summers ago I had a Wednesday off. I rose nice and early and headed north to the 507, figuring it would be a nice way to start my day, then I would head north east from there. I was taking advantage of the warm summer morning and zero traffic and letting the bandit run a little. I was leaned over pretty far, fully committed to the corner when 5 turkeys ran across my path! It happened so fast, I had no time to break, no way to swerve. I missed the last one by about an inch! After that, I took a much more leisurely pace for the rest of my ride.

I've also had a baby deer run across the road right in front of me at 2am with a passenger. Again, happened so fast I didn't have time to touch the breaks before it was out of my way. Also had a black bear run across the road in front of my once. Luckily that one was far enough down the road that I had enough time to break and swerve to avoid it. Hitting a black bear would definitely have hurt!
 
Morrissey said:
A few summers ago I had a Wednesday off. I rose nice and early and headed north to the 507, figuring it would be a nice way to start my day, then I would head north east from there. I was taking advantage of the warm summer morning and zero traffic and letting the bandit run a little. I was leaned over pretty far, fully committed to the corner when 5 turkeys ran across my path! It happened so fast, I had no time to break, no way to swerve. I missed the last one by about an inch! After that, I took a much more leisurely pace for the rest of my ride.

I've also had a baby deer run across the road right in front of me at 2am with a passenger. Again, happened so fast I didn't have time to touch the breaks before it was out of my way. Also had a black bear run across the road in front of my once. Luckily that one was far enough down the road that I had enough time to break and swerve to avoid it. Hitting a black bear would definitely have hurt!
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Especially after he got up and proceeded to express his displeasure with your actions..lol
 
On a very early morning ride back from Ottawa I saw, in the distance, what I thought was a badly treated very large german shepherd loose wandering by the side of highway 15. When I got to within about 20 feet of it and it was stood in the middle of the deserted highway I realized it was a wolf. We had a bit of a staring match and then it buggered off.
 
I've encountered deer on the road, but in a pleasant way. There was a single deer on the blue ridge parkway last summer. A few years ago I came upon a small grouping of deer on the Vivian side road in York region. Both times I was traveling leisurely and saw them well in advance. Seeing the group ahead on he road, I pulled in the clutch and just coasted up pretty close before they decided to move off the road and into the bush.
 
I had a deer try to pace me coming out of a ditch in PA not far outside of Warren. Grabbed some throttle and it cut across behind me.

Unfortunate story, lady I worked with a number of years ago lost her father when he was struck by a Canada Goose while riding his Goldwing on Appleby Line
 
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One time I was just outside of Bancroft riding next to a marsh when a Mallard Duck flew up out of the marsh right towards me. I ducked (no pun intended) and it swerved at the last second, but it was close enough that I watched the water drip off its feet and land on my leg!
 
Well, I hit a bear broadside in Piseco, NY (The Adirondacks) back in June 2012 doing about 70km/h. It was still a great trip though.
 
homme de fer said:
Well, I hit a bear broadside in Piseco, NY (The Adirondacks) back in June 2012 doing about 70km/h. It was still a great trip though.
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So did the bear just run away? What damage did you and your bike sustain?
 
Folded a deer in half on Coots Drive going into Dundas. There was some road repair so wasn't doing the full 80, good thing. Also an unusually cool summer day prompted me to wear a heavier padded jacket. So that helped. Still had to take the week off work, was very sore. Draws a crowd real quick too. On telling the story to my friend he said "but that spot is so wide open how did you not see the deer?" I had an answer but not a good one.
 
1 Bike related story and 1 not bike related.

I was riding up Big Chute road early one spring morning a few years ago. It was a weekday and there was no one around. Had barely seen another vehicle all day so far. It was sunny and beautiful out. Well riding along I found that my bladder was quite full and ready to burst, So since their had been no one around so far I found a nice discreet place I could pull over, go into the treeline and do my business.

So I'm just about done my business, I look back to the road and my bike and there's a black bear crossing the road maybe '20 away. It was a smaller one I figure to be a yearling or so. I had a thought come to me, Is this bear old enough to be on it's own or is Mamma near by?. Suddenly I decided that my bladder was empty enough. I kept my eye on the bear, jumped back on my bike, made some noise and got the heck out of Dodge.

2nd story, I was driving to a job in the city early one morning this past fall. It was about 5am and the 400 was fubar so I was taking some side roads. I was coming into Holland Marsh on a little sideroad (the 5th?) west side of 400 before 27 and north of where Weston ends. On this part of the side road, there are sections of the canals on both sides of the road and it's pretty wooded, not many houses in the area. Well it's 5am, and dawn is breaking a bit but it's still pretty dark for the most part. Way up ahead in my headlights I see what looks like a giant raccoon taking his sweet *** time crossing the road. It looked like a raccoon because it sort of had that arched back walk that raccoons often employ. But it was BIG.

I get up closer to it and get a good look. It was a beaver covered in canal muck crossing from one canal to the other. It was hard to see because it was covered in mud but that tail is a dead giveaway. Never had seen one in the wild before it was really neat.
 
Crossing a road isn't technically the wild but dammit I get your point.
 
hard to hard stop for 3 bears crossing the road right in front of me in PA. 2 crossed as I was stopped dead and the 3rd stopped and stared me down.....wish I had reverse, honked the horn a few times and he took off to catch the others....changed my pants and went on my way
 
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