Last night me and a friend were trying to think of what our number one wildlife spectacle to see would be, and it's surprisingly difficult! There any many things I'd love to see, being able to get close enough to watch badger cubs playing would be one of them.

Picking a single event took some time! But in the end I decided that the spectacle I would most like to see was a sparrow hawk hunting in the wild. Watching an amazing bird of prey like that do what it does best would be a real thrill for me.

As from a recent thread here a pike leaping out of the water to catch a small bird would be a sight to behold. Simple things like the yearly migration of hundreds of toads from our small pond across the garden never cease to amaze me. Another example is the thousands of flying ants that emerge so suddenly from the nest, and then disappear into the win as quickly as they came.

My cousin told me that there were large numbers of migrating birds stopped in the their area to rest during their spring migration. And these wildlife refuge attract more refuge staffs and volunteer to preserve habitat for migrating birds.

We always have a couple of ants nests in our garden, and on a single day each year thousands of the flying ants emerge from their nests and begine to fly away. The spectacle can go on for several hours, and in that time we can't use our garden as there is so many!

I'm still mulling over what would be the most amazing spectacle for me, but I can tell you that one year, my husband and I were birding on a local lake, when we noticed a pair of Bald Eagles skimming the water. We only briefly wondered what they were up to, as in just a few seconds time we realised that what appeared to be the male (the smaller bird) was ahead of the (apparent) female, and that the ducks on the water submerged when he came streaking down, but by the time the following bird came along, the ducks had popped up assuming that the danger was past.

Yes, we got to see an eagle catching a duck on the water.

Kingfisher

What a sight! You have to feel sorry for the ducks, they have no chance against those kind of predators really.

Unfortunately, that's the duck's lot in life .

Still fascinating to watch.

Kingfisher

Wildlife has a never ending capacity to enthrall and surprise, from the simple everyday things to some of the more spectacular ones already mentioned. I think that if I could chose just one to witness it would be Red deer stags during the rut. The power and majesty of these animals has always been something special.

I haven't seen deers rutting in the field, but even on the TV it is fascinating but also shocking how they fight. You always hope that neither deer will be seriously injured, but obviously that is not always the case.

Deer are very special to me, they have such a mystique and look so noble when you see them; invariably looking at you after realising you were there far before you had any idea that they were.

The sight of thousands of flying ants leaving the nest at the same time is an amazing sight. I haven't seen one this year but usually we get several in our garden in a summer.

In a village near where we live on several nights of the year hundreds of frogs cross the road at the same time. There are loads of volunteers that spend all night picking up frogs and taking them across the road safely. I dread to think how many get squashed because there literally is no way around them. It is a wonderful scene though.

There are toad tunnels here for that very sort of thing! There's a very famous one in Davis, California:

http://daviswiki.org/Toad_Tunnel

Wonder why no one's thought of it in your area? They aren't a new invention, they exist in Europe also.

Kingfisher

We also have a toad crossing every year. I believe there are some toad tunnels although I've never seen them, just not enough for the huge amounts that cross the road. So people go out at night and help the ones who haven't found the tunnel across. I think it would be quite a fun way of spending an evening!