For some reason, the distress sounds of little animals have a way of initiating close encounters. Dunno why, but This Happened to Me!
While mama and baby sis ran one way, Silly Sammy the black bear cub ran over the daypack at my feet.
I was sitting in a deer trail, the only 'flat' spot on the gully wall, and the coyote that came arunnin' chose to race around the corner on the very same trail. I was so flabbergasted that I failed to flick the safety off while he was still in front of me, got off a round at poking distance as he swerved off the trail around me.
A California constitutionally-protected cougar slipped in on me while calling coyotes. I don't recall, now, how close he got, but it was too close. And that didn't change when I stood up and talked at it.
I was standing at the edge of a meadow, waiting for enough daylight to find the trail, and had an owl drift overhead. I pulled up my squeaker and gave a toot. The owl made a hard bank and came shooting in, flaring off only when I waved my arms.
I came close to running down an albino jackrabbit. OK, almost close. But that was one funny scramble through the sagebrush. I was younger, then.
Does the black widow dangling from my bedside lamp count?
I was a kidlet when the family took a ride on a steam train. Governor Pat Brown, Moonbeam's daddy, came glad-handing down the aisle. I knew my dad didn't like him, so I refused to shake his hand. That was a close one. Who knows what nasty things I could have caught if I'd touched him! Embarrassed pa.
Found a bat in torpor in our cabin one winter. I needed the can of paint he was clinging to, took him outside. It was a good twenty minutes before he was awake enough to fly off. Perhaps I should have offered him a cup of cowboy coffee.
Twice I've had the 'pleasure' of sitting down on the rock or woodpile that was home to a rattlesnake. I don't like those things.
The time I convinced a Colorado camp-robber jay to eat GORP from my hand was a lot of fun.
