Transcript - “Listening Time” Episode 73

Welcome to the Listening Time podcast. Hey everybody, this is Conner, and
you're listening to Episode 73 of the Listening Time podcast. I want to thank all of my
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Alright, in today's episode, we're going to talk about some of my encounters with
wild animals. So, the word “encounters” just refers to experiences that you have with
something. So, if I've had an encounter with a wild animal, this means that I've had an
experience with a wild animal. I've seen and been around a wild animal outside. So,
that's an encounter. So, I'm going to talk about a few encounters I've had with wild
animals. This will be a fun one because I'll be able to tell a few fun stories from my past.
And I'm sure it'll be an interesting episode for you.
And remember that you have the transcript available for this episode. That's in
the Episode Description below the episode, so just go down and click on that if you
need it. And remember that the goal with this podcast is that you'll be able to understand
everything that I'm saying without using the transcript eventually, but first, you'll probably
need to use the transcript and see all the different words and phrases that I'm saying
that you might not know. And you can, maybe, listen a few times and repeat this
episode as many times as you need with the transcript or without. But eventually, you
should be able to understand everything without the transcript.
And if you like this podcast, then please give it a five-star rating and share it with
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learning English and could use this podcast to train their listening skills too. Alright, let's
get started.
Okay, let's talk about some of my encounters with wild animals. First of all, I need
to mention that I've always lived in the suburbs and the city, so I haven't lived in the
middle of nature before, so I'm not very experienced when it comes to wild animals. But
I've had a few interesting experiences before, even in my own environment, living closer
to the city, and I've also made the effort a few times to go out and see these animals in
their natural habitat. So, I'm going to talk about five different times that I've had funny or
interesting or scary experiences with wild animals.
So first, let me tell you about one that happened when I was, I think, 18 years old
if I'm not mistaken. I remember that I was in the backyard with my family. I think we had
a little get-together that day. In English, the term “get-together” just refers to an informal
gathering where friends or family members come together to hang out. So, we had
some type of get-together that day. And we were all at my parents house in the
backyard, and it was a nice afternoon. And I remember that I walked over to the slope
that my parents have in their backyard. A “slope” is kind of like a hill. There's an incline.
We have this big slope in the backyard there. And so, I was walking over there just to go
up the slope and look at the view from the top of the little hill.
And I remember that I was walking over there, and I heard this very interesting
noise that I had never heard before. It sounded kind of like a buzzing sound. It sounded
kind of like there was something shaking or something making a buzzing noise or
something like that. And I didn't know what it was, and I just ignored it. And then about
20, 30 seconds later, I see my dog come running towards me, and my dog has this
weird look on his face, and he's whimpering, and there's obviously something wrong
with him. The word “whimper” in English just refers to crying in a soft way. So, if
someone cries in a soft, quiet way, they're whimpering.
So, my dog came running towards me. He was whimpering. He had this weird
look on his face. And then he just kind of ran past me and looked a little bit confused.
And I thought “What happened? What's going on here”? and then I had an idea. And I
said, “Maybe that sound that I'm hearing is a rattlesnake.” And yes, I was right. It
actually was a rattlesnake that was in our backyard. It was on our slope.
And if you don't know what a rattlesnake is, it's that type of snake that lives
mostly in desert environments, and it has this thing on its tail that shakes and creates
this “rattling” noise, as we say in English. And so, that's the sound that I was hearing.
And so, I went down the slope, and I went to go tell my family what I thought had
happened. I said, “I think our dog just got bitten by a rattlesnake.” And sure enough, his
face started to swell up. In English, when we say that something that “swells up,” this
means that it gets inflamed. It gets bigger because of some injury or some damage. So,
his face was swelling up because he had gotten bitten by this rattlesnake just moments
earlier, and now the poison, the venom, from the rattlesnake was running through his
body and he was having this reaction.
And so, we acted very quickly, and we drove this dog to the animal hospital that
was maybe 15 minutes from our house. And at that point, his face was super big. It was
completely swollen. He could barely open his eyes and he looked pretty pathetic. And
so, we had to leave him at the animal hospital overnight, and they had to give him the
anti-venom. This is like the medicine to help him recover from the snake bite. And then,
I think the next day, he was okay. I can't remember exactly how many hours he was
there for, but I remember that he stayed there overnight. So, that was a pretty
interesting experience.
And where I grew up in San Diego, there are a lot of rattlesnakes around. So, if
you go into the nature part of that area, and during the summer especially, you can
definitely see these rattlesnakes around and you might hear them once in a while. And
you have to be careful when you're walking. And so, that is definitely one wild animal
that we are always aware of. In English, the word “aware” just means conscious. So,
we're always aware or conscious of the presence of these rattlesnakes near that area.
Alright, the next story I want to tell you is when I was walking home with a friend
of mine… we were out skateboarding and it was getting a little bit late, and we decided
to walk back home to my house. And it was around sunset when we were walking
home, and we were getting closer to my house, but we wanted to take a shortcut
through these hills behind my house because it was going to save us maybe 15 or 20
minutes if we did that. So, we decided to take the shortcut, but unfortunately, the sun
had already gone down and it was getting pretty dark at that point.
And so, once we started walking through these hills, it got completely dark. And
we were still able to see things in the distance, but it was a little bit hard to navigate
through the darkness. And we were walking through these hills. This was kind of a
nature spot with open fields that is pretty close to my parents house. And so, we were
walking around there and trying to navigate our way to my parents house. And it was
dark, but we started to see shadows around us. And at first, it was kind of hard to tell if it
was just our imagination or if we were actually seeing something. But I soon realized
that, yes, there were animals around us.
And I don't think my friend had had much experience with this type of animal, so
he didn't know what it was at the very beginning, but I did know what this animal was,
and I quickly said to my friend, “Be careful, because we're surrounded by coyotes.” If
you don't know what a coyote is, this is similar to, like, a wolf, right? But it's not as big,
and usually coyotes live near the desert. So, we were surrounded by a pack of coyotes.
In English, when we say a “pack” of something, this refers to a group of some type of
animal… usually an animal that's related to dogs, like a pack of wolves, a pack of
coyotes. So, a pack of coyotes had surrounded us and were walking around us, and it
was very scary.
We had our skateboards with us. So, we had our skateboards in our hands, and
we were ready to swing them like a baseball bat just in case these coyotes started to
come towards us. But thankfully, we didn't need to do that. The coyotes never tried to
attack us. But it was very scary to be surrounded by these coyotes. They were walking
around us. There were probably three, four, five of them. I don't remember how many,
but it was scary. And thankfully, we were able to escape that situation. We didn't need to
fight off these coyotes, but I definitely learned my lesson, that we shouldn't go through
those hills at night.
Alright, the next story that I have for you is one that took place when I was,
maybe, I don't know, 12 years old, 11 years old, maybe. I was outside with my neighbor
because at that time, I used to play outside with my neighbor a lot. We played
basketball in the street. And I think that's what we were doing. I think we were playing
basketball in the front yard. And we were just playing basketball normally. It was a
normal Saturday morning, or something like that. I don't remember. But we were outside
and his dog was also outside. He had this small chihuahua. So, if you don't know what a
chihuahua is, it's a very small dog that kind of looks like a rat, in my opinion. It's a pretty
ugly dog, but some people find them to be cute.
But his chihuahua was outside with us, and this chihuahua was just playing, or
walking around, or something. I don't remember. And we were playing basketball, I
think. And I noticed that there was a hawk flying in the sky. A hawk is a big bird, kind of
like an eagle, but not that big and not that cool. And there are a lot of them in San Diego
where I'm from. And they like to hunt for little animals, and they're kind of like predators.
And so, this hawk was flying in the sky, which was very normal. We always see hawks.
But I noticed that it was getting lower and it was coming closer to the ground. And I
thought, “Hmm, what's going on with this hawk”?
 And then suddenly, this hawk came all the way down and tried to pick up my
neighbor's chihuaha. This hawk came lower than I've ever seen a hawk come, and it
was like at the height of my head, almost. And it had its talons outstretched and open. In
English, the word “talons” refers to the feet of a bird, with its sharp nails. So, its talons
were outstretched, ready to pick up this little chihuahua. And we were able to scare it off
at the last moment because we were standing pretty close to the dog. And we were able
to wave our arms and make noise, and the bird got very close to the dog, but at the last
second, it flew back up and didn't pick up my neighbor's dog.
And this was a really funny experience to talk about afterwards: the fact that his
dog almost got picked up by a bird and almost got eaten. But thankfully, it didn't happen,
and it became a funny story afterwards. But in the moment, it was very strange. It was
something that we definitely weren't expecting.
And it just goes to show you that in areas with a lot of hawks and birds that like to
eat small animals, you need to be careful if you have a small dog because they could
also be seen as prey by these birds. In English, the word “prey” refers to some type of
animal that is eaten by another animal. Okay? So, the predator eats the prey. So, these
small dogs could be seen as prey by some of these big predator birds. So, that's
something that we learned after this, and my neighbor was more careful with his dog
after that.
And my next story is a little bit different, because it was an experience that I had
that I actually paid for and that I wanted to have. And this was when I went swimming
with whale sharks in the city of La Paz in Mexico. That's the way we pronounce the city
in English. And this is a city that's famous for its whale sharks because you can go into
the sea, and you'll see these whale sharks at a certain time of year, and you can
actually swim with them. So, I was able to do this. I was able to go in the water with
these huge, huge animals. Whale sharks are gigantic. They're really really big. They are
the biggest fish in the world, if I'm not mistaken. Of course, whales are not considered to
be fish. So, whales can be bigger. But in terms of fish, the whale shark is the biggest
one, I think.
And we swam with some really big juvenile whale sharks. The word “juvenile” just
refers to someone or an animal that is still growing. It's still in its younger years. So,
these sharks weren't even fully grown, but they were already really big. And so, you can
imagine how big the fully grown ones are. But it was a really cool experience. And I took
my GoPro with me, so I was able to film the experience and catch these whale sharks
on camera. And it was an adventure, an experience that I'll never forget because I don't
think I'll ever be close to another animal that big in my life. So, that was a really cool
experience. And that was the only experience that I had on purpose that I'm talking to
you about today.
And I have one last short story. This is a funny one. My parents have a pool in
their backyard. And I remember that, a long time ago, these two ducks started to make
their home in our pool. It was the strangest thing because there shouldn't have been
any ducks nearby. We didn't live near any pond or lake or anything like that, but
somehow, these two ducks started living in our pool. And at first, it was really funny
because we were wondering what was going on. This is such a weird experience.
But on the other hand, it was a little bit annoying, because obviously, these ducks
were not letting us swim in our own pool because these ducks were dirty and they were
leaving their mess in our pool, and it was not convenient for us to have these two
animals living in our pool, and especially because it's always important to keep your
swimming pool clean, and you always need to maintain it and do a lot of work on it. And
it's a little frustrating when you do all of that, and then, these animals just come and dirty
it up. And that was what was happening with these ducks.
And so, we had to get rid of them. And what we did is we used fishing line, this
line that you use when you go fishing. You put it on your fishing pole… this kind of, like,
string. We call this “fishing line” in English. So, we used this fishing line and we ran it
back and forth along the pool, and we made this kind of spider web thing that didn't
allow these ducks to come and swim in the pool. And so, the next time that they came,
they saw this fishing line and they weren't able to swim in the pool. And so, they decided
that they couldn't be there anymore. And eventually, they left and we were able to have
our pool back again, just for us humans, and we didn't need to worry about these wild
animals swimming in our swimming pool. So, that's kind of a funny one I wanted to add.
Alright, well, why don't we stop there for today? I hope these stories were
interesting for you, and I hope this episode was good practice for your listening skills.
Remember that if these episodes have become easy for you, if you can understand
everything that I'm saying pretty easily, then it's time for you to move on to my advanced
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make sure to sign up today. And remember that you have the transcript available for this
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podcast a five-star rating, and share it with anyone else who might find it useful. Alright,
thank you for listening to this episode, and I'll talk to you on the next episode of
Listening Time.
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