I keep stumbling onto these types of days that celebrate animals.  All of them involve learning about animals and trying to take action to improve their lives.  This one is interesting because it’s connected to Saint Francis of Assisi, who is in charge of animals . . . Not sure what that means.   Anyway, I’m going to share some animal encounters I’ve had over the years:

• Seeing a wolf or coyote down the road while walking in a forest.  Thought it was a dog until I saw more showing up.  I was a kid, so I was curious, but knew better than to do anything other than go back to the house.
• Feeling homesick when I went to Israel after high school graduation.  It was an art trip that was a gift from my grandparents, but the writers bailed during the flight over.  So, I was feeling isolated even with so many people around.  The place we were staying at for that section had a lot of cats, who would gather around me whenever I went off to be alone.  Guess they sensed I wasn’t happy.
• Visiting relatives with a big backyard always had some kind of animal encounter.  The big one was when skunks came by.  I was really little and watched a lot of animal shows, so I figured I could crawl over to watch.  They didn’t pay any attention to me, so I got within a few feet and just sat there.  My dad freaked out when he realized where I went and rushed over to get me away.  Nobody was sprayed, but the skunks ran away.
• In Florida, I was writing at a picnic table the apartment complex had by the pond.  It usually had lizards and frogs around, so I didn’t pay much attention to the noise.  This day, I heard a loud thump to my left and looked over to find the resident red-tailed hawk standing near by baby name book.  It was just looking at me for a bit before taking back to the air.
• In college, I had a weird habit of noticing or running into animals, which amused a few of my Wiccan friends.  One instance was me sitting down and a small skunk wandering by soon after.  The big one was noticing an animal in the distance one night and saying it was a gray fox.  A local friend said that was impossible until the gray fox stopped under a light, looked at us, and ran off.  I do miss hanging around that area and seeing what would turn up.
• There’s a group of squirrels in the local park that always approach me for food.  I’m sure someone feeds them, but they always come up to me when I’m playing Pokemon in their area.  We have conversations about how I don’t have any food and then they leave.  Last year, one of the squirrels kept within a few inches of me even when I walked out of its usual area.  Apparently, a hawk was in the trees and I was being used as a deterrent because the squirrel ran off as soon as the coast was clear.

There’s probably more because I seen to always pick up on animals being around.  It can be a deer in the distance or a turkey vulture flying around while I’m driving upstate.  I always stop to watch the ospreys hunt if they happen to be in the park.  Come to think of it, I tend to talk to animals a lot.  There’s a large flock of small geese in one park I go to and I always have to walk through their numbers.  I’ve seen them go after people, but they tend to leave me alone as I apologize while going through.

Have you ever had a cool encounter with a wild or unfamiliar animal?