Cool stuff you see while hunting...

Happened this morning while out Quail hunting in NW Oklahoma. Had shot one earlier on a nice point by my GSP. Left there for another place and GunnR was working ahead and to my right about 75 yards when I looked up and saw him standing nose-to-nose with a coyote. I took a double take not believing what I was looking at, both standing there ground, not growling or aggressive in any way. The coyote than started to move back & forth as GunnR just stood there. It lasted maybe 10 -15 seconds before I could get him called back. As he started back the coyote started to move slowly in the other direction. As I thought about the confrontation the coyote was either sick or had been wounded, either way it was the darnest thing I had ever witnessed in my 60 years of hunting. Normally, (unless they had been sleeping or they don't hear you) you won't get much closer than 100 yards.
 
Deer hunting some public land,there was a very large cotton wood tree next to a slough that beavers had started chewing on.
Walking along a fence line to the the spot where I was to block,there was a small family cemetery overgrown with weeds and brush.
Pheasant hunting in SD our group was walking along a fence line and found a blood trail that we followed.We found a dead 8 point buck
that had cut his femoral artery on a steel fence post.
 
A few years ago, while driving a cornfield for pheasants in Iowa, we bumped an 8 pt buck that ran downfield toward the blockers. When we arrived at the end of the field, the buck was laying on the ground between two blockers.

They said the buck had crashed into a fence post head first and knocked itself out.

A few minutes later, it got up and ran off.
 
I was hunting the Missouri river breaks several years ago. I took the dogs down to the river to get a drink along a small cattle trail. As I rounded the corner, I came upon half a buffalo skull starting to be exposed in the pathway. I resisted the urge to dig it out and keep it,, but it was hard to resist. My uncle found a buffalo vertebrae in the Floyd river in Iowa while out hunting, that had a stone point embedded into it. Now, that conjured up some images in my brain. Id like to own that piece someday..
 
A5 Sweet 16 said:
One thing I love about pheasant hunting is all the other cool stuff I see. What have you guys seen this season??

I'm probably forgetting some things, but just this season alone, I've seen:
1. This abandoned grain elevator near Nunda, SD. I've driven by it many, many times & am always fascinated by it. So lonesome. I'd love to know its history.

2. More snow geese than I've seen in many years - possibly ever. Because of the nice weather, they hung out in the Lake Thompson area for over a month, which is very, very uncommon. I almost always stop to watch a small flock fly over while I'm hunting. But when they're actually migrating & stretch from horizon to horizon, I feel pretty lucky to be standing there seeing it.

3. A weather balloon near Ramona, SD. I'm walking through a cattail slough when I'm tripped by something. Strange place for a 1/4" cord. I follow the cord about 20' to an end, and there's a large looking balloon frozen in the ice. At the other end was a data logger (I know this because it said Data Logger). The weird thing is that it had been completely destroyed. The device itself, the plastic & styrofoam container it had apparently been in, & the information sheet with it. There were just enough fragments to piece together that it had apparently come from the NWS in Aberdeen, over 100 miles away.

4. 3 tundra swans on a public hunting area pond near Colman, SD, a part of the state I'd never seen swans before. I saw them 2 times on the same pond, 2 weeks apart & stopped to watch from shore about 100 yards away the 2nd time. They didn't seem bothered by me, my dog, or by the bald eagle who showed up & circled them for quite a while, low, about 50 yds high. I really think he was trying to get one of them to fly, so he could attempt an attack once it got low over the nearby ice.

5. 2 mule deer does on a public area near Emery, SD. At first I thought, "Huh, deer watching me." But when they turned & boinged away, it really caught me by surprise; they're so unlike what I'm used to. I don't think I'd ever seen mulies east of the Missouri before.
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I've hinted snow geese in Saskatchewan 5 times.I love to watch snow geese Beautiful birds, and very smart!!!
 
Cool photo of the tree growing up thru the car....see that a bit in alaska, where abandoned vehicles get consumed by mother nature in pretty short order..
I think one of the most enjoyable things I like to see is a raptor going after the same bird I'm after.......have got to watch the aerial dogfight quite a few times...
Top of the list was decades ago, high in the ruby mts, at around 10000 feet. I shot a blue grouse sitting high in a fir tree, but only wounded him.As he sailed across the high mountain valley, I kept a close eye, hoping he would drop....Suddenly he dissapeared in a cloud of feathers the size of a kitchen....Out of the cloud came a big assed golden eagle, blue grouse in hand. The report(pop) of the hit came a second or so after the hit....
Those goldens put scaveging bald eagles to shame when it comes to hunting skill
A friend from wyoming once saw one take an antelope lamb...
Now, those quail killing s.o.b. hawks we got around the place...thats another story....not so fond of them, they will take a whole covey down to nothing in short order..
 
Was winter pheasant hunting in SD with my son about ten years ago. Snow was on the ground and we saw some birds feeding a few hundred yards off.
We pulled over to glass the birds when a falcon flew low over us. Then it went high and swooped down clipping a hen where she could not fly. Then the falcon circled and landed on the hen to finish the job. We couldn’t believe what we just saw. 30 or so years ago in Alberta had a falcon chasing a pintail, flying thru our set up left to right. It happened so fast no one raised a gun. They flew out of sight but doubt it finished well for the pintail. Another year in Alberta had a fighter jet fly over tree top level. Never saw or heard it coming. I’ll never forget the noise, speed, and fright that quick encounter brought
 
Ran across this. Car was not running but the key was in it and the radio was playing. Thought for sure would find a dead body but didn't even see tracks in the snow.
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This was my grandmother's school house. It is not far from where I hunt in Wisconsin. There is still a chalkboard in it and it has some writing that has been there for as long as I can remember.
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I think I've seen more nice deer while pheasant hunting, kicked up out of the grass in the middle of hundred(s) acre grasslands than my deer hunting friends see while actually deer hunting. Conversely, it sounds like they also see more pheasants around their deer stands at sunrise then I ever see while pheasant hunting...
 
I had the pleasure of seeing countless sandhill cranes flying into a playa

I’ve seen a red tailed hawk fly off with a cotton tail & watched one tear a squirrel into pieces for its breakfast

maybe my most cherished wild experience was watching a mature buck whoop a youngster all over the meadow.
 
While woodcock hunting in northern New Jersey last season a friend and I came across an old abandoned cemetery. In it was the grave of a man named William Utter. The inscription on his stone read that he was a Veteran of both the American Revolutionary War and the War of 1812. See pic below.
 

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