Nemisis species
Everyone has that one species of mammal that we try our absolute hardest to photograph and brag to our friends about but always never seem to get it right. It may be the time of year, our luck, karma, juju for the superstition among us but there is always a way that that particular species will slip from our hands. For example I have been to northern Minnesota, granted at the wrong time, this March just before a person 4 days earlier had seen a Canada lynx. We had spent considerably more hours on the Gunflint trail using all the tricks and all the prayers we could muster but we could only manage a red squirrel. It was so bad we had to label it a birding trip so we would not come back home defeated. This is my newest and most persistent nemesis species currently. A former foe of mine was the Southern Giant Pouched Rat for not ever being able to stay still enough for me to photograph and when I did get a photo the phone that it was on broke. So I ask you members of the mammal watching community what is your current, or formal, nemesis species.
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11 Comments
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John Archer
No doubt about my nemesis mammal! I’ve been to Yala in Sri Lanka, Kruger in South Africa, Gir Forest in India (where I’ve seen people in another jeep watching one that disappeared before we got there), Queen Elizabeth NP in Uganda, Ethosha in Namibia and the Okovango in Botswana, and I’ve still not seen a Leopard!
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John Archer
It’s bizarre! I’ve seen plenty of mammals less likely than Leopard on those trips, such as Sloth Bear at Yala and Cheetah and (daytime) Serval in Kruger. The bogey is nothing to do with cats (I’ve seen 13 species not counting feral Domestic Cat), nor cats with rosettes (seen Jaguar and Ocelot). It does seem that it might extend to anything with leopard in the name (apart from the tortoise!). I missed a Mainland Clouded Leopard by seconds at Khao Yai, seen and perfectly described to me by a friend who was a birder of the “if it’s not got feathers, I’m not interested” variety! And I’ve not seen either species of Leopard Cat, despite numerous Bornean night drives, which did produce Marbled Cat (and Sunda Pangolin!), and a birding friend at Eagle’s Nest in NE India calling me to a “Leopard Cat” a tree which I re-identified as a Spotted Linsang – no objections to that one not being a Leopard Cat! I’m hoping to go back to Namibia next year, but if I dip Leopard again there, I might be putting out a request for somebody who can guarantee a Leopard sighting to someone who’s clearly cursed not to see one!
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Sebastian Kennerknecht
Wow, that is truly a nemesis mammal. I think, as I am sure you would agree based on your experience, anyone guaranteeing any wildlife is not to be trusted, haha. We have had a ton of good leopard sightings in Kafue and Lower Zambezi NPs in Zambia, and the delta in Botswana (but I know you said you dipped on it in Bots).
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Chad Johnson
Weirdly, I usually have terrible luck with mammal spotting but Leopards are the one animal I’ve been successful with. On a trip to Kruger I saw them 9 out of 10 days including seeing one interact with giraffe and one that had been treed by 2 male lions and was not too happy about it. But here in the USA where I live I can’t even find a damn moose…
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JeffHigdon
For a few years, it was Arctic hares in a specific location, Churchill, MB. I had seen them already throughout Nunavut and elsewhere in northern Manitoba, but I was guiding beluga whale and polar bear tours for 3 years before finally seeing one in Churchill. I’d see fresh tracks everywhere, hear about sightings from others, and check all the usual places, with no luck. When the dam finally broke I started seeing them all over, haha.
More recently, I have failed in my attempts to see a European beaver on holiday and work trips across the pond. My wife and I did a Danube River cruise from Vilshofen, Germany to Budapest, Hungary in March/April. I spent most of the trip on deck looking for beavers anywhere habitat was suitable. And did a bunch of hiking on the Danube and Vils rivers in Vilshofen before departure. Lots of beaver sign, but no beavers. I mid-April I was in the UK for a workshop, and went to the Ealing beaver reintroduction site in NW London. There are multiple beavers at the site, which is fenced, and thus perhaps asterisk worthy for a list list. But that’s a moot point anyway, since I didn’t see any beavers there either.
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Chad Johnson
For me it’s North American Porcupine. I finally saw it–in Minnesota!–in January but didn’t get a good picture.