In your country, what "common" animals are tourists most excited to see?

Catoblepas@lemmy.blahaj.zone to Asklemmy@lemmy.ml – 267 points –

It has always amused me that the tourists to the US that I’ve spoken to are often very excited to see raccoons, and disappointed if they don’t see them before they leave.

Some others I’ve noticed on the east coast of the US are blue jays and cardinals. Boy, do people get excited about those if they’ve never seen them before! Very pretty birds of course, just very easy to get used to and see as uninteresting as well.

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Australian white ibises. They're kinda like the Australian equivalent to a raccoon in the US; they eat rubbish and their roosts stink because they tend to congregate in a single tree and then shit everywhere. But they are quite unique looking birds: long beaks, black heads and white plumage. So the tourists find them quite interesting and the locals call them bin chickens.

An Australian white ibis, a bird with white feathers, black head, long legs, and a long beak.

I was one of the fascinated tourists taking a million pictures of bin chickens. But, I was at least aware of it... because I remember at the time joking with my wife that the locals were laughing at us basically taking pictures of pigeons/seagulls.

They look like the wading birds I liked seeing so much in Spanish rice paddies.

I'm not surprised, I'm pretty sure they're wetland birds too.

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