Wildlife at Shenandoah National Park

We were quite lucky with some of our wildlife spotting. Things our group saw:

• Deer (does) - grazing right up to just outside of our cabins. They have their babies later on, so no fawns yet.
• Turkey - on the side of the road. They look just like the turkey on the Wild Turkey Bourbon bottle.
• Grey Squirrels - not so many as we see at home, and considerably wilder
• Chipmunk - dad thought it was a red squirrel, until he saw the photo of a chipmunk
• Bob cat (picture shown above) - apparently we were quite lucky with this one, as we saw something that was a bit smaller than a Labrador, but in fact, the adults are much larger, so what we must have seen was possibly a baby (with a mother near by?!). In addition, they're quite rare sightings. Surprising given we had kids in our group.
• Black bears - two cubs, one mother, from a distance, and while making noise and backing away
• Rattle snake - very large and fat, maybe like it had just eaten? and very active on some rocks at the top of a mountain. I have been cured of my happy assumption that there are no poisonous things in the USA to worry about, and once again am reading the snake spotting drill to the 4 year old.

All in all, very happy to have seen some wild, exotic animals!