Being an avid outdoorsman I spend a lot of time in the forests of New York (don’t look too suprised - New York is huge and encompasses much more than NYC and suburbs, there are parts where you could walk for days without seeing people, roads, or houses).

Over the years I have seen a lot of interesting stuff:

• Mountain Lions have literally walked past me (within 40 feet) on 2 occasions.
• Black bears have walked within 25 feet of me.
• Bald Eagles have hung out in my back yard.
• Owls have landed within 5 feet of me and hung out for a while on 3 occasions.
• I’ve seen  Red Tailed Hawks snatch up chipmonks twice.
• I’ve watched a Bobcat pounce on a squirrel and miss.
• An otter likes to hang out on a rock by my cabin and eat freshwater clams.
• I’ve watched Bald Eagles doing some fishing.
• I’ve had a pair of Porcupines walk across my boots.
• I’ve had numerous birds land on me.
• I’ve shared a snack with a red squirrel that was sitting on my boot.
• Several deer have walked to within touching distance (no I wasn’t stupid enough to try and touch them).
• Skunks have walked up to me several times.
• A skunk once entered a screen tent I was sitting in.
• I saw an Ermine in the wild carrying a field mouse it had just caught.
• Twice coyotes have stalked up on me.
• I have a family of flying squirrels living in the attic of my cabin (they are really cute and very rarely come down into the actual cabin, although it is fun to sit on the deck at night and watch them coming and going from the attic vents).

You may be asking yourself whats the point already. Well tonight I saw the strangest thing ever - a skunk that was over 3 feet long from nose to tail and nearly all white - just a thin black stripe down its back.

I know I am accurate on its size because I was looking straight down on it from my deck and it was at least 3/4 as long as my armspan and I am 6′2″ so I have a big armspan. At first glance I thought someone had lost a persian cat, but there has never been a persian cat this huge.

It just goes to show - you may see or learn something new every day if you are open to it.