A Quick Collecting Story

Just wanted to share a fun wildlife story that happened to me last week. While digging a rather large hole here in New Jersey, I heard a soft "chip" from behind me. I turned around and sitting in a low bush was a Hermit Thrush, a robin sized bird with a speckled chest and rusty tail. It seemed to be looking right at me. I stood up and little by little, the bird moved closer until it was standing on a rock right next to me. It then jumped in the hole, presumably, to find food. I doubt he/she had any interest in the piece of Azurite I had my eye on. Anyway, the bird looked around for about six seconds and then flew off to another bush close by.

I only wish I could have taken a picture. I figured I would have scared it much like I did with a raccoon I tried to take a picture of early one morning on one of my collecting jaunts.

Cattle egrets evolved from foraging in marshes to following cattle, and finally to following tractors. Will thrushes evolve to follow rockhounds?

I was walking through the bush above the town I live in, my mind was kinda wondering a bit as I bushwacked through the underbrush. All of a sudden I heard terrible squawking and my leg start vibrating!.I thought to myself "Oh my God, its got me by leg" I had no idea what I was dealing with for a sec or two, or until I got my wits back, anyway. Turned out I accidently stepped on a grouse that was roosting there. After it B-Lined out of there I looked to see if there were any eggs. Luckily,no.
Gord

Collecting last summer near Mattawa, I was challenged by a little red squirrel - he opened his jaws wide and BELLOWED - well, in his mind I'm sure he was bellowing! I swear, I could see the veins throbbing at his wee temples. And I could see his tonsils. He was quite outraged that instead of fleeing in fear, I burst out laughing.

"The Mouse that Roared" comes to mind...

Maggie

I was collecting river agates in a quarry about 3 weeks ago and lifted up a 10"flat river rock and instantly jumped back due to a coiled up 10" timber rattlesnake. it shook its rattle a few times and lunged out at me once. Quite pissy for such a little fellow. I was not able to get a picture due to it crawling in the gaps in the pile of river rocks it was on.

Then this last Sunday I was collecting Petrified Wood and came up on a 1 ft round rock on the ground and I was bent over about 2 ft from it digging and a loud hissing came from right in front of it I noticed movement and jumped about 2 ft in the air backwards. I thought oh no another rattlesnake. I saw it move but couldnt really make out what it was. It would not move and would only hiss like a snake. I finaly realized it was a bird and was able to get the attached photo. I believe it is a Night Hawk about 10" in length. Stubborn little thing. It had a warm little spot and did not want to give it up. A few hours later it moved about a foot and there were no eggs to be seen so I guess they just do not have any fear. I took a second picture about 1 ft in front of it with my phone and the fake camera sound got it to fly off.

Ariel

What a fabulous picture. A member of the Nightjar family to be sure-Nighthawks, Whip Poor Wills, Poor Wills. We only see Nighthawks in migration in August and then by the hundreds. But I've never seen one roosting.

By the way, I would gladly take a Cattle Egret with me on trips. He/she could perch on my shoulder and pick off the Deer Ticks. A true symbiotic relationship not to mention how stylish I would look..

I like David's idea of symbiosis with a cattle egret. Had some tiny ticks on me once after a hike in the jungle in Belize. Went swimming in a creek later and some small but aggressive fish came and picked them off. Of course, they were just as happy biting moles, nipples and anything else that vaguely resembled a tick.

My best wildlife related collecting story happened at the Case Quarries in Portland, CT. I had just arrived at the quarry and spotted a large black creature a few hundred feet away in the woods. I couldn't really tell what it was in the split second I saw it. A couple minutes later I spotted it again and confirmed that it was a black bear. At around the same time I noticed movement about 20 ft in front of me amidst some rocks on the mine dump. As I moved a bit closer to investigate I could see the bear cub's head poking out looking at me. Needless to say, I made a speedy retreat! I actually lucked out with a nice columbite crystal that I found literally 30 seconds after arriving on the dumps.

Did a dig one summer for amazonite on crystal creek in Teller Co. Colorado, near the little village of Florissant. We set up a humming bird feeder that became quite popular with those amazing little birds. Usually only one would land at a time on the feeder and they would squabble and chase each other around like little missiles. When the weather turned cold and rainy they would share the feeder, sometimes four or five would quietly take turns feeding on its perches. They would sometimes come and feed from the thing even if you were holding it. I think they regarded us as trees that moved a little bit.

Rock Currier
Crystals not pistols.

Hi All,

Enjoying wildlife is one of the greatest benefits of our field collecting passion and we're always looking out for our next National Geographic moment. I collected pseudos (chamosite after almandine) at the Spurr mine just west of Lake Michigamme in Michigan and had a beaver working not 20 feet from me---all the while oblivious to my activities. It noticed me but just didn't seem to care! The same day an adolescent porcupine ambled right past the small waste pile that I was working and I followed it for about 30 yards from a distance of only a few feet. It never stopped or turned around or anything---cute little bugger.

After our move to AZ, the very first rock my wife picked up at the Reymert mine had a scorpion attached to it. I brought a tarantula home from the Horseshoe Dam zeolite locality north of Phoenix and entered our apartment with the unplussed critter atop my head. My wife hates spiders and imagine her horror after seeing it when she gave me a peck upon returning home from my collecting trip that day!! In Canada, I've caught snakes at mines and two snapping turtles near Bancroft. We watched a hawk gobble down a snake whole near the Dwyer mine near Wilberforce. The hawk was tearing it apart upon a pole and seemed to panic when we stopped just below to watch and decided to swallow the whole thing.

My closest encounter was when I decided to check out a small rocky hill near our home out here in AZ. There had been historical gold mining (not too successful it seems) in the area and the neighboring mountains held many prospects and abandoned mines. This little hill was just off a very busy road and I could see a quartz vein running diagonally through the rock at one point. Further, even from the road, it appeared that the vein was vuggy or had been dug out in places--no doubt in the search for gold. I stopped one day after work and worked my way up the side to where the quartz vein was exposed. The vein ran just above a ledge that was just slightly above my eye sight and I pulled myself up a bit (on my very tiptoes) on the ledge to get a better view. The sticks, debris and droppings should have been a red flag to me but it just didn't compute in my zeal to get a closer look at the quartz. The largest dug out portion of the vein was apparently the den of a roadrunner! I inched my head above the ledge only to be charged by the roadrunner that nearly ran into my face! It startled me so much that I nearly lost my footing--I almost tumbled down the side of that rocky hill! We were literally less than a foot apart---my head and the whole bird! I now call it Roadrunner Hill.

Best regards,
Dana

PS--great pic of the nighthawk. We have a TON of these (seasonally it seems) out here in the Phoenix area. They are fun to watch as they head out from the mountains to our community where they feast on moths, etc. They flitter about like large bats and visitors always think that they are bats becauses of their erratic flight patterns. In some of the area parks, one can see them hunting insects around the lights in parking lots, etc.in the evening.

PPS--whew...edited 3 times! I guess I should be in bed instead of on mindat this early in the morning! Damn mineral mania!



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 04/22/2010 09:06AM by Dana Slaughter.

Not many minerals to collect here in Florida, but we regularly step on moccassins in the swamps. Usually you don't hear anything - you just feel the snake move and know to pick up your foot and step back in the same motion.

In the summer, we carry "banana" spiders on our shoulders to thin out the deer ticks, horseflies, deerflies, and especially mosquitoes. They are hard to train, though, and not everyone masters it.

Reading about nice hairy spiders reminds me of one of the most frightening incidents of my youth. My folks took me to Ecuador, Columbia and Panama on a winter break. Part of the trip involved getting in a motorized canoe and going several hours up a river to a hut deep in the jungle. One morning, we took the canoe over to a village where the women were panning for gold. While watching, Ecuador's equivalent of the Tarantula Hawk-actually four of them started dive bombing us like they were B-19 bombers. I went face down in the canoe and shook-I was in fifth grade at the time- when our intrepid guide reached up into the air and grabbed one of the nasties and shredded it. The women were non-plussed about it and handed me a nice vial of Gold which I still have.


Alfredo, I'm really glad that your story involved a fish cleaning station instead of about the fearsome Central/ South American fish who swims into a man's urinary tract and inserts a series of barbs making the hopeless victim pray for death.

Once back in the 70s went collecting in the Northern Territories in Australia at a little mine known as Mt. Bonnie. Parts of the mine had big cockroaches that lined the walls so thickly that you could not put your hand on the wall to steady yourself with out crushing them. When you turned off your light it sounded like putting a sea shell up to your ears. They were always dropping of the ceiling onto you. Occasionally there were these real big hairy spiders that looked like tarantulas that would be crawling on the wall with the cockroaches. It was interesting that the cockroaches would always keep a clear space of a few inches around them. Also lining in the mine were these big bats, some of which would wake up and fly about. They would fly towards you and then away. Some would find their way past and sometimes you could feel their wings brushing your face. You got used to it though. My collecting buddy, Dem Pohl showed me the skeleton of s snake that they had killed on a previous trip. He said that they killed it one day and when they returned the next the skeleton had been striped clean.

Rock Currier
Crystals not pistols.

I was going home after a trip up Hellroarin Creek in the Kootenays when I spotted a blue grouse all decked out for mating on the side of the road. I stopped, got out and took a bunch of photos of this bird drumming up a storm. I don't what prompted me to look up the road but when I did there was a sow grizzly with 2 small cubs slowly making there way twards me. I slipped back in the truck,took off the ebrake and slipped it into gear keeping one eye on the road and the other in the rear veiw mirror as I eased down the road. It took about a minute or so before I rounded a corner and lost sight of them. She didn't raise her head the whole time--I doubt she knew I was there, which suits me just fine. Although I didn't come home with any goodies the trip was well worth the effort.
Gord

Dave,

One of my most interesting stories involves collecting in Utah. I was walking around collecting for a few hours and happened to look up to find myself in the middle of a herd of Antelope. They had accepted me as harmless and just ignored me. Usually you can't get within a mile of these fellows on the open areas of the desert. I was within 10 feet of them and just decided to keep picking up rocks and they just fed away from me and never noticed their commune with a rock hunter. When I went to town to get gas I met a few hunters who said they hadn't seen an antelope all week. They told me they only hunted on private land, since everyone knows the antelope just aren't available on public land. I just let them go on believing their little tale and went my way, thanking God again for the chance to be among his lovely creations.

P.S. I also collect in rattle snake neighborhoods, since they don't like those sharp rocks in their dens and push them out. I have never even been threatened by one while doing this. I make plenty of noise to let them know I'm coming. When I ask permission from ranchers to collect in these known areas they just shake their heads and agree to let the "crazy" person do what he wishes.

Joe D.

I was out after dark, walking along on Baptiste Lake road, when visiting the late Sam Woodcox, in Bancroft Ontario!
It was a moonless night...the stars were exceptionally bright...and, as is often the case up in that area, the barely visible road I was walking on, sounded almost hollow ...

I heard a loud splashing noise and then some very close and loud hollow clumping sounds on the road and I
stoppped stock still , then heard, or rather felt and heard a loud exhalation of breath or a snort from right in front of me...I bent low and looked
up to see if I could see some kind of outline against the stars..and I couldn't see any stars in front of me at all...they were all blotted out by a rather large animal form...I was absolutely frightened and backed slowly away until I could see the lights of Sam's place and then I hightailed it back.
They were all hysterical when they heard that I had met Herman, their resident local bull moose, who was probably just as upset as I was..



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 05/11/2010 08:46PM by Ray Hill.

This chukar seemed to know that hunting season was long past. He had laid claim to this rock and didn't want to move while I had lunch. He and some of his friends spent the morning poking around the Boulder Hill Mine in Lyon Co., Nevada on a fine, sunny day this past March without a bit of caution for the digging going on.

I sent this photo to a friend in New Mexico who is a serious birdwatcher. He has made two trips to Western Colorado looking for one of these and still does not have it on his Life-List. His comment; "cheeky fellow."

Steve



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/08/2010 04:30AM by Stephen Rose.

Several years ago I visited again one of my favorite collecting localities, an abandoned high alpine gold mine in Austria. [www.mindat.org]
A friend of mine wanted to see the parts from the 15.-16.th century so we crawled into this narrow, cold and muddy system. We had to pass a heavily collapsed area, so small that you just can come through. Noting fresh (otherwise we wouldn`t have made it as we were no suiciders), as a lot of dust was already on the collapsed boulders. We rested afterwards and at once we heard something.
Imagine sitting in a Middle Age mine, several km inside the mountain, in an area where probably there was noone for the last centuries and you hear a sound! It was like a very deep, slow hammering.
My first thought was "There can`t be a sound - its impossible!" But we heard it again and again.
If you can`t it explain logically you easily think of stories you know -especially when you read the last book of Agricola

We decided to refuse this second theory and explained it as something real but we don`t have the knowledge to know the origin of the sound.
So we crawled back for some hours.

This evening we were sitting in an high alpine hat and eating food which a farmers women brought us. We told her about our experience and she responded that on the other side of the mountain they built a new hat. So we probably were as far inside the mountain that we were already on the other side of the mountain where they worked OVER us.

I was camping with a buddy in the Blue Valley outside of Highlands, NC for a few days on a VERY successful amethyst collecting trip when we heard lots of loud crashing through the underbrush about 20 feet from our tent. Luckily we were only staying by the mine shaft for one night and did not hike up any food as it was obviously a prowling black bear. We were deathly silent and the bear went on its way. Before we drove out the next day we looked for tracks and sure enough they were there by the small brook running alongside the mine dumps. The best part of the trip was when a full-grown black bear barrelled across the gravel road not 30 feet in front of my car when we were returning to civilization.

At the same mine in the summer months, hundreds of thousands of "camel" crickets like to inhabit the ceilings and walls of the stopes and drifts. You have never heard a grown man scream like a little girl unless you were underground that day when approximately 20 of the critters fell inside the back of my shirt and started squirming around when I brushed against a low ceiling. If footage of that was on Youtube it would probably get a million hits the first day. My buddy still almost cries he laughs so hard every time he reminds me of it.

Guy

Your story , Guy, reminded me of a rather stupid misadventure I nearly experienced in British Columbia a few years ago...I had decided to see if I could find some of the scheelite that had been reportedly found at the gold mine site, on Bear mountain, near Harrison Hot springs , Harrison Lake. So I took my portable UV light with me along with a highpowered flashlight and clambered up onto the mine dump at dusk to collect all by myself. I sat around drinking tea from a thermos until it was dark enough for the "black light " to be effective and started carefully working my way around the dump, by flashlight , stop, turn it off, shine the UV source around my feet and move on...I did find quite a few pieces that shone quite brightly and was pleased with my lone venturing up the mountain, when I heard a loud thrashing in the bushes at what seemed to me to be quite a short distance...I foolishly shone my million candle power flash light in that direction to see two very red looking eyes reflected back at me...now what was it they said about playing dead or running...well it is very difficult to run over a scree covered slope, so I felt very stupid laying down there and playing dead and hoping that the "BEAR" would have been frightened by the light...the loud thrashing noise did resume about 3 minutes later, and after what seemed like an eternity, it went further away...

not having become dinner, and feeling a very strong desire to get to my car, I hightailed it out of there with my bag of scheelite bits, happy to have succeeded and lived to tell the tale...that is, that Bear Mountain was aptly named..



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/12/2010 05:49AM by Ray Hill.