When I work from home I usually have the front door open for some fresh air as it is opposite my study.
Yesterday I had finished work for the day, I was sat in my sitting room ordering a service kit (filters) for my car on my laptop.
I am lucky to live in a quite remote location so rarely see anybody apart from the postman.
In wanders to the sitting room a greyhound, not a big one, black in colour and a bit grayish around the chops.
All is calm I look at said beast, said beast looks at me.
I get up, smooth greyhound, walk down the hall to see if said beast has brought a human with it.
No sign of a human.
I return to the sitting room to find said beast enjoying a chocolate biscuit I had planned to dunk in my mug of tea.
I gently take hold of the said beast's collar and lead him down the hall out to the yard.
Still no human so I walk up the hill with my new friend to come across an out of breath human desperately trying to find his greyhound.
Greyhound's human alleges that Greyhound (called Bruce) had seen a squirrel and set-off in pursuit leaving its human trailing in its wake.
Bruce was one of the calmest and most friendly dogs I have ever met.
About 5 years ago I had a cat I don't own walk past my study door, 2 minutes later it walked back and passed the door going in the other direction apparently oblivious to me presence. Only scarpering when I stood up.
Last edited by BadgerUK; 31st May 2019 at 22:07.
Sounds like a good day to me!
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I too live in quite a remote place in the country, surrounded on 3 sides by fields. Have had a cat walk in as if it owned the place, plenty of sheep wandering round the garden, a fox (which ate the kids Guinea pigs after opening their hutch), loads of daft pheasants and a bird which flew through one open window of my living room and out of the opposite one, while I was sitting on the sofa, without missing a beat.
The greyhound sounds like a rather nice dog.
We had a similar experience except with an old lady suffering from Alzheimers. My son commented there was a lady in the hall as we all watched TV in the living room. Having sat her down and offered a cup of tea, we had established enough information from the last for my wife and I to escort her (walking hand in hand) home. A surreal experience that doesn't happen every day!
Greyhounds, and more generally sight hounds, are just superb. Super cool dogs.
A few years ago, sitting in the lounge I notice a movement in the hall, think ‘didn’t see the cat leave wife’s lap’ to realise it was a young fox! 50 odd ft from the patio doors it had come in by, cat spotted it and gave chase, fox legged it! Not in some rural idyll but a market town in north Essex :-)
Mmm, no greyhounds or similar...
I remember our first family trip to Florida. Sitting on the sofa watching tv at night, I noticed a spider THE SIZE OF TEXAS coming from under the fridge. I swear: it was looking at me! And didn’t wait for me to find my flip-flop. I never saw it again... I never told my wife (arachnafobic)
My wife was on a trip to Sweden and took a taxi from the Stockholm airport to a hotel in the rural outskirts of the town. Driving on a small road, coming from a hilltop she and the taxidriver spotted a moose! Calmly walking on the road. The taxi had to stop and wait for the moose to walk off. According to my wife a majestic moment seeing the moose calmly walk away.
My wife said to the driver: “Wow, only an hour in Sweden and I’ve seen a moose!” The driver replied with: “I am 50 yrs old and I have lived here all my life. 25 yrs as a cab driver in this part of Stockholm and this is the first one for me as well!”
Last edited by thieuster; 1st June 2019 at 06:19.
Out stalking a rough shoot one day, and spied a family of foxes from the top of a small hill, just thirty feet or so below.
I watched them play for a good fifteen minutes, mother, father and three small kits.
In this same small area I have, over just a few months, watched a family of green woodpeckers, a lesser-spotted woodpecker nesting and bringing up a family, a stoat that passed me without seeing me, a weasel hunting in a large patch of clover, and sat against a tree stump observing the habits of a school of chub in a small stream, watched a sparrow hawk hunting many times, and it almost landed on the fence post I sat against.
Who cares about no game to eat when you see things like that?
I love nature, very relaxing.
Similar to the above post as went fishing one morning about 5am for sea trout up at Lochailort. Only life about were midges when about 50 yards away an otter came out from the rocks with two young kits. I quietly put the rod down, sat back and watched them playing/feeding for about 30 minutes before they swam off.
Packed up my kit and went home as I wasn’t going to better that.
I hear woodpeckers most days and see them in the back garden quite regularly, usually in pairs, one feeds on the ground and the other keeping watch from a higher point. I see the green ones more often than the spotted. I am not sure which of the spotted species I see.
What makes me enjoy and laugh about them is that they have a touch of magic and wonder about them, they are not the most efficient of flyers, they appear to have a mismatched body weight to wing size ratio. Which means their flying consists of an aerial cycle of falling out of the sky and regaining some lift.
On a very early spring morning I was driving alone up a long steep drive to a remote hotel. The single track road wound steeply up around a forested and thickly misted hillside. I slowed to enjoy the calm, popped the windows down and stopped to take in the atmosphere - heavenly, isolated, peaceful. A Stag quietly stepped through the trees towards my car and snorted. Breathing heavy forced air into billowing clouds of steam that came through the window and filled the car. On some kind of primeval level it was possible to sense, smell and practically taste the stag and the power, the wildness it embodied.
Gray
When I was a little boy we were in a friends Ford Anglia on a single track country lane. We stopped as there was an adult hedgehog crossing the road with her babies behind her.
The guy in the car behind wasn't too happy but I fully recall the "he can go over the top if he want's to" as the handbrake went on & a cigarette was smoked until they'd all crossed !
Only yesterday my dog, Mollie, and I were joined at the start of our walk (4am - Mollie likes an early start!) by a friendly and playful collie. No owner in sight. An hour and much canine play later we arrived home, collie in tow. A quick bite to eat for the dogs and the collie's pic on Facebook resulted in the collie being collected by its sheepish owner an hour later. This morning's walk was disturbed by nothing more than a glorious sky
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I once chased a Wallaby (either that or a juvenile kangaroo) across five fields in rural Staffordshire. No idea where it came from (apart from the Antipodes obviously) or why I chased it. Never thought what I'd do if I actually caught it.
......
I once caught two hedgehogs at it in our garden, lots of grunting and a 7ft laurel bush shaking rhythmically. Bolt shot and they both came waltzing out as innocent as you like lol.
A few years ago I was playing golf and had just placed my ball on a tee ready to strike a magnificent shot down the fairway. This was somewhat interrupted by the eruption of a gaggle of fox cubs from the undergrowth next to the tee....they proceeded to wrestle each other not two feet in front of me. Shortly after a sheepish (can a fox look sheepish?) vixen turned up and herded them away.
Slightly bizarre but quite nice.
If anybody is interested my subsequent magnificent tee shot wasn't that magnificent.
Again,playing golf,I was standing on the tee wondering what to do when a small herd of deer walked in front of me. Two of them then decided to get jiggly with it about 10 feet in front of the tee box. It's one thing avoiding bunkers and suchlike but I don't normally have to avoid a stag's arse!
Had a similar golfing story from playing a society tournament at Rufford Park back in the early 1990's, when a stoat chased a rabbit onto the tee box, ran around my brother's legs a couple of times and back into the trees.
I'm confused (possibly as I don't use Facebook). Could you explain please how the owner found your photo on Facebook?! Doesn't FB have millions of possible pages?
Just think, you could have had bragging rights to any golfer's dream, a hole in one !
I once found a deer on my road in the middle to the afternoon.
Random- haven’t seen once since .
Agreed. We have one - a retired racer. When racing he was very successful (you can look up all their race history online) and when he was two years old changed hands for 50k!
We got him for a donation of seventy quid and he’s lived on our sofa ever since.
They are very chilled out dogs. Sleep up to 22hours a day, get on with all other dogs, don’t get themselves messy, barely moult, and are perfectly happy being left in their own for extended periods if needs be.
The one thing we are very careful of is letting him off the lead - their chase instinct is so strong and recall is not good!
So clever my foot fell off.
Some nice stories in the thread!
To contribute - I was just in my yard here in Doha (see the Gardens thread!) and something heavy fluttered by my head. It settled on a tent I've got drying out there - a Death's Head Moth. My fat thumb for scale. Not mad-rare out here, but nice to see, none the less.
I was walking my staffie a couple of years ago when we came across some sheep with their lambs.
I'd normally have him on the lead near sheep but hadn't seen them, anyhoo he went for a sniff at the lambs and one of the sheep shepherded him anyway neat as you like.
I was impressed with the sheep's sheperding skills.
I posted it on the 'Welwyn Village News' Facebook Facebook site so it would come up on the Facebook feeds of loads of local residents who has subscribed to the page. But I was gobsmacked that someone who actually knew the dog and worked with the owner saw it so quickly and so early in the day - I started the walk at 4.10am and got home at 5.10am - posted dog's pic straightaway and got the reply in less than 5 mins - really, really lucky. I don't think the owner knew the dog was missing at that point - apparently it was the third time in a fortnight that the non-neutered male had run off! He collected it at 6.10am