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Rules that are always applicable are as follows:

  1. One photo per answer, and no more than 5 answers per user per contest.
  2. Post only photos taken by yourself/person with you.
  3. All entries should include a line of text with the location, subject, and date.
  4. Refrain from posting sensitive/debatable content

Rules for March are as follows:

  1. Fauna - Picture should be of a free non-domestic animal in either a wild or non-wild setting; no people.
  2. The contest will last the whole month of March and to be clear, we use UTC, just like the site itself.
  3. There is no constraint on when the photo must have been taken.

Suggest a theme for the next contest.

  1. Leave a single comment below in the format THEME - ONE SENTENCE DESCRIPTION
  2. Upvote the comment(s) with the theme you would like to see next month.

Good luck!

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    Theme: Activity: a person or people interacting with the natural environment in some way. This could be walking, climbing, cycling or anything else other than merely posing for the photographer.
    – Toby Speight
    Commented Mar 1, 2019 at 13:40
  • 1
    Underwater - At a minimum the camera must be underwater if not the photographer when the photo was taken.
    – Charlie Brumbaugh
    Commented Mar 2, 2019 at 17:46
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    Theme: At Home in The Great Outdoors. Photos of your campsite. People allowed.
    – ab2
    Commented Mar 7, 2019 at 1:19
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    I want more animals :D too many pictures with this motive to share, and too many great pictures to see from others to make this a single theme. But we can take a break and look at something different for a while :D
    – Paul Paulsen
    Commented Mar 7, 2019 at 9:28
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    I want more animals too, but I think it may be better to have two or possibly more categories so the insects (which have some great pics) are not competing with mammals and birds. l
    – ab2
    Commented Mar 10, 2019 at 16:58
  • 2
    Another suggestion, although not for April: At some time, we might have a category called OOPS! with photos of surprises, goofs, mistakes, troubles in TGO, but with minimal blood and gore -- more on the funny side. I am sure even the best of the best on TGO has occasionally said "oops" during a trip and even took a photo.
    – ab2
    Commented Mar 14, 2019 at 21:23
  • 3
    Theme - Bird's eye view: Photos taken from planes or otherwise high in the air and feet not on the ground.
    – user17482
    Commented Mar 19, 2019 at 17:45
  • 3
    Theme - Extreme weather: photos of extreme weather that made you rethink how you ended up there or that are otherwise interesting and weather-related.
    – JJJ
    Commented Mar 24, 2019 at 20:18

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Wild reindeer in northern Sweden, August 2014. A friend and I were on the last hours of our hiking trip, when he signalled freeze and something ahead. Usually, the reindeer always ran away when they spotted us, resulting in just bad photos from a long distance. In this case, the one pictured and a young one didn't see us peeking around a rock, so I was able to take a few good shots for a change (though cropping was really really necessary), until they strolled away.

Reindeer

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  • It's interesting that caribou seem to have slightly different behaviour in Quebec. When I encountered lone animals, they usually froze and watched me from a distance for a very long time. One solo hike I even had a male stalk me from the ridgetops as I made my way past him. This was in mountain taïga and tundra too, very open valleys.
    – Gabriel
    Commented Mar 25, 2019 at 16:16
  • That area in Sweden has quite a few hiking paths, so I'd say they are not entirely unused to people. We even had two males fighting directly next to the hiking path instead of running away, so we took a small detour around them instead.
    – Dynat
    Commented Mar 27, 2019 at 15:25
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This strong chipmunk climbed out of its hole and up through two feet of icy snow in our yard in Massachusetts, USA, on February 22, 2017. Within a minute or two it came all the way out, stepped gingerly around, and went back down!

I took the picture.

Chipmunk 2 feet of icy snow above his hole.

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Dolphin in Loch Carron, Scotland. Taken on Tuesday 23rd February 2010, by holding camera underwater alongside my kayak and repeatedly shooting until the animal was in the frame. This took a long time, and the water was around 0°C, so I suffered for this one!

Dolphin with shafts of sunlight

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    A, ah, I mean +1, for effort :D
    – Paul Paulsen
    Commented Mar 4, 2019 at 10:32
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The Sidney Hangout

Sydney Hangout

April 24, 2018, Sydney Australia.

Found this beauty in an unlikely place, The Chinese Garden of Friendship, near Darling Harbor in Sydney Australia.

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    I'm noticing that perspective might be flipped for you, so, FYI, that is the spider's underside while he hangs on the other side of the web.
    – user17482
    Commented Mar 7, 2019 at 22:04
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A taylor bird sizing up an ant :D Taken on May 14, 2017, Bangalore, India

enter image description here

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A sea gull in the air
Taken 1 May 2011, from a ferry Calais to Dover.

The gulls seemed having fun flying with the ferry and watching the passengers.

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  • This is just gorgeous.
    – ab2
    Commented Mar 21, 2019 at 1:03
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Awesome Slug - taking a stroll for a breath of fresh air

Awesome Slug - taking a stroll for a breath of fresh air

September 2, 2017, Northern Idaho. Still taken from video about 13 seconds in.

These slugs are common to the Pacific Northwest USA and Canada. They grow to about the size shown in the image. This image shows their amazing anatomy, specifically, how they breathe. On only the right side of their mantle is the pneumostome, that is, a nostril. That's right, they breathe through a hole in their side. Such creatures prove to me that nature outdoes science fiction every day of the week. I was unaware of this interesting feature at the time the image was taken, hence, I'm thinking out loud during the video.

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  • It is actually beautiful!
    – ab2
    Commented Mar 7, 2019 at 22:18
  • That slug is awesome!!! I've always loved (and been criticized for loving) slugs, but I've never seen this one!
    – Sue Saddest Farewell TGO GL
    Commented Mar 8, 2019 at 1:16
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Moose wandering inside our hotel in Alaska

To be clear, I've taken this photo and own the copyright to the image. I've opted to host this externally due to the 2 MB image size limit and to better allow others to use this.

While we were visiting Denali National Park in Alaska, I noticed that a moose had taken residence at our outdoor hotel, and was wandering about different locations inside the lodge. Taken June 17, 2018 at the Denali Park Village hotel.

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Camel spider that I found while hiking on the east side of the Toiyabe Range in the summer of 2017.

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Turkey vulture seen on the descend from the Pan de Matanzas, Cuba. Picture taken April 2018.

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  • Nice! I saw one last summer, but couldn't get close enough for a picture. I did find the fawn carcass he was looking for, however.
    – user17482
    Commented Mar 7, 2019 at 19:18
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An unknown, but beautiful animal (chameleon? gecko?) on the wall of a building in the campismo of Bacunayagua, Cuba. Taken April 2018.

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    Looks like some kind of gecko. Very relaxed :-)
    – Rory Alsop Mod
    Commented Mar 8, 2019 at 8:57
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    The lizard be like - What you doing bruh?
    – Ricketyship
    Commented Mar 11, 2019 at 13:43
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A herd of Bharals (blue sheep) wandering on a ridge. Taken near Leh, Himachal, India - August 2013

enter image description here

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Some Monkey and Bird Action going on here: enter image description here

The picture is taken at Wat Thammikaram Worawihan in Prachuap Khiri Khan, Thailand. Picture was taken by myself in July of 2017. The birds and monkeys roam free but decided to join us in the parking lot for some snacks sold by local vendors. Most of the monkeys sit on the stairs leading to the temple on the big rock (?) and eat whatever they can steal from tourists.

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Discharge is nigh! Photo taken in July of 2013 at the FAE Hospital in Lampang.

enter image description here

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Moose and calves living inside our hotel in Alaska

To be clear, I've taken this photo and own the copyright to the image. I've opted to host this externally due to the 2 MB image size limit and to better allow others to use this.

While we were visiting Denali National Park in Alaska, I noticed that a moose and her two calves were wandering about our outdoor hotel, which is just across from the Nenana(?) River. Additionally, it was very late at night when this photo was taken, but the latitude was such that the sun would never set. This photo was taken from afar using a smartphone camera (it's not safe to get up close to moose, especially when they're with their children).

Taken June 18, 2018 at the Denali Park Village hotel.

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Bouquetin Bouquetin,

Photographed in Savoy (Vanoise massif), Monday 17 July 2017 at 13:29 by our wonderful mountain guide.

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Weka in scrub

Weka at Punakaiki New Zealand taken 2 November 2013.

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Dragonfly I found while climbing Gannet peak in the summer of 2016.

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Christmas Otter

Normally, otters are somewhat camera-shy, disappearing as soon as they see a lens. But this one took a guarded interest in two of us kayaking on Christmas Day 2012 on Loch Carron in north-west Scotland. After we'd drifted to a stop, this otter observed us for about ten minutes, actually passing between our boats as it circled me.

otter in Loch Carron

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A colibri, I suspect a Cuban Emerald, on a clothes line in a backyard in Viñales, Cuba. Taken July 2018.

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Not sure what this creature is, but it lived in Khao Yai National Park in July 2012: enter image description here

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In Kanchanaburi Zoo, it's a non-wild setting, but the animals roam free in the zoo (well, predators are separated from the non-predators, ^^). The unfocused thing on the left is not my finger but another giraffe's snout looking for food. Photo taken in July of 2017.

enter image description here

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Donkey eating on the other side of the fence!

This picture was taken at the side of a back road near Chincoteague, Virginia, USA. There was a large farmland with many animals eating in the distance. Apparently this donkey wasn't satisfied with what was on his side of the fence! The date was May 6, 2018. My husband took the picture. I was standing beside him.

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Lyell salamander that I found while hiking at around 2 am on my way up Mt. Ritter in the summer of 2017.

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I previously posted a picture of this chipmunk climbing out of its hole, through two feet of ice and snow, into our yard. After pulling itself all the way out, it took a few steps and turned around. As you can see, it didn't like the feel of ice on its feet! At the end of this leap, its front feet landed in the hole and back down it went!

It was February 22, 2017, in Massachusetts, USA. I took the picture.

enter image description here

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    This is quite reminisce of me exiting the shower on a cold winter's night.
    – user17482
    Commented Mar 19, 2019 at 17:44
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These are wild ponies who live on Chincoteague Island, Virginia, USA. The herds have been there for hundreds of years. The only paths approved for human viewing are far enough away, so as not to bother them. This picture was taken from one of those paths during our trip to the area on May 6, 2018. My husband took the picture. I was standing beside him.

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