Interesting/cool/ out of place wildlife

Basically just post any noteworthy odd wildlife you've encountered.

I've posted a few on the creepy outdoors thread, but mine are :

1)Hearing a black bear chuffing outside of Serpent Mound, while having two painted lady butterflies staying on me the whole time I was in the park.

2)Having a cougar run across the road while walking two my childhood dogs in a neighborhood bordered woods and farmland maybe 7-ish years ago.

3)Maybe a decade ago, around dusk my dad and I hiked around a decent local fishing area. There are two main large ponds/ small lakes, and s third one that is overgrown and less frequented. I was on the far side of the overgrown one, bordering the woods, and saw the tail of a sub adult alligator slide into water. I was frozen with awe and excitement, and then ran to my dad to tell him. I've been hugely reptile obsessed and detail oriented since I could remember, and honestly there's nothing that comes anywhere close to a crocodilian's tail/hind end. For the first time ever (even going to current times) we came across a park employee and I spilled the sighting to him, going into distinct details. He hardly acknowledged us... with it being Ohio and us having such extreme weather the poor little scaley guy probably died the following winter, but I still thought the park guy should have reacted more.

Im very used to seeing gators irl from my dad and I visiting FL yearly/ biyearly for family when I was younger. I absolutely love gators, but at the same time have a fear of encountering them in Ohio waters... and often dream of them. There have been quite a few escapees pulled from local waters, and until recently it was stupidly easy to buy a baby from the reptile shows I frequented.

So that gator encounter has hugely affected me and I won't allow myself or my dogs in water where I can't see the bottom because of it.

4) Much more mellow, but for a few years there was a curious and friendly Townsend's Warbler who would travel to a business area near the daycare I went to as a little kid, that had patches of woods and 2-3 ponds. Not too crazy, but they've rarely traveled as far east as Ohio.

5) Not my own, but when my mom was a little girl(80's), her mom had a large property in the country that backed up to a lot of woods and farmland. While wandering about, she suddenly heard a rattle, and honed in on a large Timber Rattler sunning their self and alerting her.

While my grandma had the property I would try to sneak away to see the rattler as a little kid. She's since moved, but I still frequent hiking parks in the area, still hoping to see a similar snake.

6) For a few years when I was younger, my mom, one of my childhood dogs, and I lived in a very rural area with her then bf and his dog. My dog and I would roam for hours on his property. One day, late fall/ winter, we were on the edge of his property. I remember seeing three enormous dark colored deer like animals with ewe necks and pale rump patches, with two hunters in camo and fluorescent orange hot on their trail. I started to panic badly. I owned every Audubon field guild and have always been extremely by the rules and careful about defining "Ohio" wildlife. I remember having a special way of marking Ohio wildlife with a circle, and a star within the circle to indicate that the Ohio wildlife could be within my general area. Anyway, elk were supposed to be hundreds of miles away and I was so upset that I raced back through the fields with my dog, bursting into the house and crying uncontrollably. I cried so badly and my heart and breathing rate were so extreme... I'd call that the first of maybe only 2 panic attacks I've had in my life.

I've since learned that there are a few wildlife hunts around SW Ohio that incorporate Elk, and that others have found elk bones that are of recent origin in the general area.

I now believe that either remenant or escaped elk passed close to my old home and were being hunted. My very intelligent young mind was drastically upset by the idea of extirpated animals from (what I thought) were hundreds of miles away, but were actually surprisingly close to home and just not noted by my field guides.

So what are your unusual/creepy/strange/cool/ out of place wildlife encounters?

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Interesting/cool/ out of place wildlife