In 8th grade, I went on a trip to the boundary waters up in Minnesota. I saw plenty of the usual stuff: raptors, waterfowl, fish, etc. But, aside from the STELLAR view I got of a bald eagle, the best animal sighting I saw on that trip felt a bit magical. A small group of us were exploring a small and peculiarly-made beaver dam pond**, obviously looking out for the beavers, when I saw something moving out of the brush across the pond. It was a female moose.
That thing was huge and it was so close. It was terrifying to be within 200ft of one of the largest animals on the continent, but also extremely cool. I'm pretty sure I'll never experience that again without being at a zoo.
**Think an infinity pool, kind of, but with the sides being made of grass. It's hard to explain, but we were standing on a dry patch next to the pond and the water's surface was around chest level compared to our heights. It was weird, like the beavers had woven the grass together to hold the water back or something. I'm honestly not sure how it worked.
On another less exciting note, I spotted a Lifer today. There was a red-breasted nuthatch on my feeder this morning. I didn't ever think I'd see one in my backyard because we have only 2 trees lol. And there's also a juvenile cottontail rabbit chilling under our porch steps. It's a cute little thing but we have SO MANY raptors around here that I'm afraid it'll be nabbed by something eventually.