I’ve only been abroad one time, and there were little gecko/lizard things everywhere, climbing up walls and scurrying across roads, and nobody cared. I was constantly fascinated but to the locals they’re just kinda there.
Bonus question to anyone who visited the UK - was there anything that fascinated you but I’d be taking for granted?
Pic unrelated.
I live near the Rocky Mountain line so I’ve seen it many times. People I’ve met in other cities I’ve lived in always say they’re jealous that I’m close to such a place but live there long enough and they just become another mountain
I moved to the midwest USA 15 years ago and I still can’t get over the trees screaming at me. It’s deafening but no one seems to care.
The trees are silent where I come from
We have cicadas in Provence, but only when I moved to southern Japan did I understand the meaning of the adjective deafening. They must be a different species. I had to actually scream to my partner to be heard.
must be a different species
They are! Japanese cicadas are more shrill than the ones found in other parts of the world, and even the different subspecies within Japan have different frequencies they shrill at. I swear the cicadas in Okinawa were more ear piercing than the ones around Tokyo when we visited, but my family didn’t believe me :')
Sweet, appreciate the info
Em, what?
oh, riiiiiight. Did you know someone who moved from CA complained to the town hall open mic night in my town about them? As in “what will we do about the noise?”
I live in Cincinnati and I care. I find the cicadas incredibly annoying. Not only the noise, they also leave their shells all over the place and walking down the sidewalk creeps me out. crunch crunch crunch
South East Queensland (going from when I first moved here from Tassie) - the weather, the wild parrots and other birdlife (curlew’s cries still freak me out in the middle of the night). Also, I love my resident gecko bros: they keep the insects down, and their chirping soothes me.
Bonus answer from when I was in the UK - squirrels.
I feel like you could set the clock to birds here sometimes - Wake up = all the little birds, lorikeets
Lunchtime= plovers, as people navigate around them
Arvo= cockies and corellas
Evening = not a bird, but fruit bats
Random time during the middle of the night= the blood curdling scream of the curlews.
There’s also a bird I hear every morning I call the ‘Austin Powers Bird’ that does a call that sounds exactly like this . Anyone know what bird does that?
I mostly recall the cry of the plover from the early evenings in Tassie.
The cacophony from a lorikeet’s tree at dusk is something else. There’s thousands of them, and the poop scars the landscape.
This:
Photo was taken on the pin here, facing in the same direction as the camera. It is very pretty here.
(Note: I cannot afford the two commas it takes to live here, I live in the Portland metro area.)
Let’s be honest, that was a humble brag adding a picture of a State Park.
I grew up in Portsmouth, England. Some my friends would come to school from the Isle of Wight on the hovercraft service. We all thought the hovercraft was pretty cool, but I only recently found out that it’s the only commercially operated hovercraft in the whole world.
There used to be one across the channel but it was discontinued some time ago. I took it once. It was cramped and noisy, but fast.
I grew up in Gosport and enjoy the looks I get when describing that we needed to get a ferry across the harbour if we wanted to go to a club like Walkabout. I hear the overnight ferry stopped running so you’re screwed trying to get home late now.
I was in pompy 2 years ago and yes i found the hovercrafts cool. I didnt know that fact! Thanks! I wonder if my boyfriend from pompy knows that fact too.
Fratton is quite scary though ngl
Is it still operating? For some reason I thought it stopped quite a while ago. Or maybe that’s the one that used to cross the channel.
Yeah, still running like normal: https://www.hovertravel.co.uk/.
Yes it is! Costs £20 if i remember correctly
As far as the UK goes bumblebees are pretty great, also the pollen soup that is spring, hiking is also pretty awesome in the UK, lots of hiking trails that run between towns/pubs that just cut through farm etc.
I didn’t know Tasmania has bumblebees until I moved here. You don’t get them in the rest of the country. They’re such adorable insects.
There are bumblebees in Tasmania?!? Damn them, the closest we get in WA is Christmas beetles and we don’t seem to get too many of them any more … I miss those dopey bastards
What about the werewolves?
Stick to the road. Beware the moors.
(Mostly) very good public transit in big cities and even in some smaller areas.
I personally still love to see the mountains. I grew up in a place scraped flat by glaciers in the US and seeing the mountains on a couple of sides of me every day here in Japan still feels really neat and inspiring, even a decade in.
When I visited the US I was excited to see squirrels running around. We don’t have squirrels where I’m from. We took pictures.
It must have looked like we were excited to witness a cloud in the sky.
I grew up in rural US, squirrels everywhere. Still fascinated by them! Moved to the southwest, was sad there weren’t trees and squirrels out here. Then saw my first (closely followed by like a dozen more out in the area) ground squirrel! Some touristy areas they will line up all cute doing tricks for scraps of food. They’ve learned our oohs and aahs generate treats.
No squirrels? You from Greenland? Antarctica?
Israel
I was a bit excited that the US squirrels are gray and large, we have smaller red ones in Germany.
If you really want to see huge squirrels check out a US college campus. They’re so fat!
Noted
A squirrel in a public park near me climbed up on me to get to the peanuts I was holding, no fear. It was also absurdly obese.
It was also absurdly obese.
Hey, just like many of our people! Yay, America!
Those poor lil things… I feel sad for them. :(
I got a squirrel took my apple away from my hand!
Jesus how strong was that squirrel
American squirrels can be aggressive. I was eating an apple one day and I kid you not, a squirrel jumped at me and took it from my hand.
We have grey squirrels in the UK, although they’re not native. They’re responsible for the decline in native red squirrels, you rarely see them now unless you go to particular areas.
Not only UK. As far as I know the same problem is spreading around all of mainland Europe. US squirrels have a better immune system and a more varied diet, they are also more aggressive and territorial. They are slowly replacing indigenous red squirrels.
Dammit. :( Us humans are so talented at selfishly fucking over indigenous populations.
I wonder where you visited! Grey squirrels are rare where I’m from in the US, 90% brown in midwest
We have different colored squirrels in some regions.
https://wildlifeinformer.com/types-of-squirrels/
You’ll need and extra SD card next time you visit.
Ah, very cool. Maybe I’ll visit again once the current presidency ends. If that’s ever going to be the case.
and the german ones are really skittish too.
Those i saw on the canadian campus just lay next to the side walk, chilling. Fat and grey
Mirroring what others have said - at a nearby university that has (had? sigh) a large foreign student population, some folks actively feed the squirrels. For several weeks at the beginning of the school year, you could very easily spot new students by who was out taking photos and getting mobbed by these squirrels that are way, way too comfortable getting close to humans.
My wife is from the Philippines. Squirrels are a thing you have to visit the zoo the see.
I love when people see deer here in North America. You’d think they’re seeing a unicorn, when it’s just some plain ol’ mule deer.
Forest rats.
I’ve seen deer just wander through my yard in town
We also get turkeys.
Ah, yes. Those fuckers regularly stopped traffic when I lived in Michigan. Not for tourist reasons of course, they’re just big and travel in packs. And take their sweet time crossing the road.
I always lived in states where deer hunting was a pretty common pastime. The first time I went to a zoo in South America, I cracked up when we got to the display of white-tailed deer.
I understand Australians have a similar reaction to zoo kangaroos
Totally me in the US! Deers in Europe are stuff for natural parks!
Chipmunks did it for me. They look and act so much like cartoon critters I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.
I love chipmunks! Such a big squeak from such a tiny body, plus I love their pointy tails :)
Oh wow. I saw a squirrel once in Catalonia. Wonderful sight.
When I visited Canada from the US, my extended family and I drove in separate cars, thereby arriving at separate times spread out over a few hours.
Every group of us took basically the same picture when we arrived because we’d previously only seen brown squirrels and there was a solid, dark black one running around in the back yard.
My parents’ neighborhood is ALL black squirrels. I thought they were rare until they moved (only 30 minutes from where I group up) so I was quite surprised to see dozens in their yard
It’s funny what people notice. I have a friend who grew up in the American Southwest, and her wildlife culture shock when she moved away from there came from wild rabbits.
The Southwest is populated by jackrabbits, so after they encountered an eastern cottontail, they were genuinely concerned some malady had befallen it to cause it to have such small ears. She thought maybe someone was torturing the local wildlife and cutting off its ears.
I love this and was about to post something similar because my family met a family from Australia at Disney World and the little girl was SO excited about the squirrels. It was adorable.
I live in the Midwest, so squirrels are just always there.
Used to work at Disney World. Can confirm the squirrel amazement. (And I worked at Animal Kingdom, the squirrels occasionally got more attention than the actual zoo animals. Although the local ibises hanging out with the spoonbills were still cool.)
I saw my first chipmunk last week and I totally screamed oh shit there’s Alvin! in my heart.
Don’t let your inner child die!
I still remember my first chipmunk encounter. I heard the little guys before I saw them and wondered “who the f is out here playing laser tag in the woods? ”
I’d guess people from monkey countries feel the same way about them impressing us. They’re in similar niches and everything.
Italy. I’ve seen tourists (probably american by the looks and the words) cheering and in awe because, in cities, there are free public drinkable water fountains.
UK here. Various right-wing governments have discouraged and torn out almost all the public drinking fountains on the basis they were being used by the homeless (they were also being used by everyone else, but ignore that bit). I’ve not seen much of Italy outside Rome but the water fountains there are amazing; just a simple gesture of mutual respect between humans.
American here, I was over the moon when I visited Amsterdam and everywhere (even in stores) had water fountains that not only had clean drinking water to refill water bottles, but where so prominently displayed (we hide ours by the bathrooms, if we have any), and most where very artistic or at the very least matching the aesthetic of the store.
I did that in Ulm!! Fountain i took water from
People coming up staring for 15 minutes!!
Then i walk away and they, like a scared animal, walks up to the fountain and checked it out from all angles and took a sip.
I was visiting my friends in centrall europe and one if them wanted to show me the local speciality. We travelled 45 minutes by car and other 45 minutes by foot to look teeny tiny swamp. It was line 4m² and It was protectect area. My friend was really proud to show it to me.
I live in country where 26% of our landmass is swamps and wetlands…
These fellas
On the flipside, when I was in Japan some old guy mocked me for taking a photo of a no littering sign.
Hahaha that sign is so charming though
And it’s another example of “if you don’t want me to do it, don’t make it look so fun”.
Cheeky little guy, he can’t even keep his ear and trunk behind the red line. That elephant truly does not care for our silly human rules.
Someone Japanese said you were taking too many pictures? Haha, that’s ironic given what they’re like abroad.
Kangaroos, wombats and platypuses.
Kangaroos and wombats are dangerous when you’re driving at night.
To be fair, I’m probably unique in my apathy toward, borderline dislike of, platypuses. When I’m out fishing and I see a platypus I pack up and go somewhere else because I know I won’t be catching any fish.
Was at the RACV park in Inverloch (VIC) last weekend. Lots of kangaroos and wombats roaming around - one was being given space while it crossed over the bridge lmao. We love that everyone is chilled and everything was so quiet and peaceful.
The possums even more so I’d say, especially in the cities.
I’m actually not sure I’ve ever seen a wild platypus, and I haven’t seen a wombat since I was very young, but I don’t think I’ve ever lived in an area with them. Kangaroos were everywhere growing up in the bush though, in the backyard, school car park, sharp bend around a dark corner…
I’ve been lucky enough to see a lot of animals in the wild, but platypuses always evaded me. I even lived by a river for a year, where everyone else saw them.
About a week ago I finally spotted one in a nearby lake while going for a run. It was just happily swimming, diving, surfacing, repeat. I watched it for ages.
I remember I was maybe 8 years old and lucky enough to go out on my dad and uncle’s fishing boat. They were commercial fishermen, netting sardines.
I was so excited when dolphins showed up, only to discover that not everyone loves dolphins when my uncle got the shotgun out. He didn’t actually murder any dolphins that day but not for lack of trying.
Suffice to say, I think most fishermen have a healthy dislike for other predators.
Platypuses don’t eat fish. They eat worms and yabbies and insect larvae. I don’t know why the fish stay away from them, but they do… Maybe the platypuses are territorial as they’re competing for the same food? 🤷
Pawbably all the splashing about I’d say.
The Dark Hedges. Not our number one tourist destination, but probably the most overrated one. It’s some trees that appeared in Game of Thrones and the over-tourism + the increase in stormy weather thanks to climate change is killing them.
We’ve more popular places like the Giant’s Causeway and the Derry walls, but those places are worth visiting at least.
I grew up near Oceana Naval Air Base. Only tourists look up when they hear jet noise.
I used to work in a building that had a room dedicated to testing weapons and ammunition at the end of the hall opposite my office … They tested by live firing. When I started there, it got a good startle out of me the first time or two, then I subsequently chuckled at all the new hires being similarly caught off guard.
Sadly, one guy who came through was a veteran with PTSD. Even the plumbing banging in the walls put him on alert. Actual live firing weapons were (understandably) too much to bear and they didn’t do it on a schedule so we couldn’t just not be there when it happened. (None of the above is meant to make light of the situation; I genuinely felt sorry for the guy and tried to figure out a way to help the whole time he was there.)
There’s a happy ending, though! He was only exposed to that experience 2-3 times (it wasn’t frequent) before he found another job more suited to his needs - one that offered a pension, no less.
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