Rattlesnakes, when I was kid at our summer house in the Arizona mountains. My mother, who was utterly fearless on her own behalf but anxious and frightened on behalf of her children, used to say, "Stand back, children," and then she’d hurl boulders at them until she had killed them.

Almost every creature in its natural environment knocks me out, whether it is a leopard in Tanzania or a Southern leopard frog at home in Mississippi. The leopard is one of my favorite animals — so bad (one of the few predators who kills more than they can eat) and lazy (lolling around among the branches all day) and totally beautiful. But when you see them in those branches, as I did during two glorious trips to Tanzania and Kenya, what is most striking to me is how much less "exotic" they look when they are where they are supposed to be — all those dazzling golds and tangerines seem to fade away and they are literally one with the tree bark. I don’t think I’m ever any happier than I am in  Africa.

On my first trip, my friend McGee and I spent all our time roaming around in open Jeeps and drinking Tusker beer and taking in all these amazing sights, and then we realized that was pretty much how we’d spent our youth, except the exotica we were looking at from my Mustang convertible were mostly horses and cows and rattlesnakes, not to mention the ubiquitous possums and armadillos.

A year ago I had the opportunity to sit in the nest of 18 mountain gorillas while shooting a story in Rwanda. There are only a few hundred of these magnificent creatures left in the world, and the group we visited was kin to the gorillas Dian Fossey died trying to save. It was one of the most thrilling experiences of my life. Sitting five feet from one of the females, I had the real sense she wanted to communicate with me. I certainly wanted to communicate with her. I did learn something very interesting — we were warned by our guide that the senior male, "the boss," would most likely charge us when we approached as a way to indicate his dominance. We were instructed to sink down to our knees and expose the nape of our necks to indicate to him we bowed to his superiority. It worked. I only wish I had learned this technique years ago. Could have been very helpful at work.

In 1980 in Deauville, I met the Mexican movie star María Félix at the Royal Hotel. She was living with a man described as a former room-service waiter. She wore giant necklaces in the shape of snakes — one emeralds, one diamonds. At 66 or 67, she had long, black hair, wore a poncho and smoked cigars. I knew I was looking at a cougar, a jaguar, a queen of the jungle, a merciless raptor and an idol of millions. And Deauville — home of gamblers, louche aristos, soldiers of fortune and babes of all stripes, was her natural home.

In spite of growing up in Texas amid rattlesnakes, armadillos, road runners, jackrabbits, horned toads and the like, I have never really encountered an animal in the wild close up.
    
I did once work with a cheetah on an NBC-TV show, but a trainer had it first on a chain, then let it loose to prove it could outrun a car at 60 or 70 mph and cautioned me to remove my lipstick or the cheetah might attack, thinking I was wounded.
   
But I did have a delightful, wild experience on the beautiful restored Connecticut River where I sometimes visit my godson. When he was about six or seven years old, an “immature” American eagle would come nightly to sit directly on the flagpole at the end of the dock. The little man of the house named him “Wally” and this eagle arrived like clockwork every evening just as the sail- and motorboats came back up the river from Long Island Sound as the sun was setting. While cocktails were being shaken up, “Wally” would perform, leaving his perch sometimes to catch a fish and gobble it up before our eyes.   
    
One morning, however, when the late Ann Richards was visiting as a houseguest, we saw “Wally” early in the morning, on the flagpole. With the stars and stripes blowing below him, “Wally” seemed to have a broken wing. He appeared to be struggling to stay atop his perch. We watched him with alarm and then Ann went into her emergency mode, calling the Environmental Protection Agency, the local ASPCA and every wildlife group she could find in the yellow pages. “Wally” continued to flap one wing as if it were useless and he was teetering, but Ann couldn’t get any results and this made the governor very upset. We watched “Wally” with binoculars as he dragged one wing and Ann demanded help from the local police and everyone else. “We have a magnificent,
rare American eagle here and it is in trouble!” roared Ann.
    
Suddenly, “Wally” quieted himself. He seemed to know he had gathered an audience. Then he reared up, clutching the top of the pole with his claws, the flag flapping underneath him. He threatened to fall, dipped, then fluttered both wings and took off, soaring out over the river and back through the enormous treetops and over the house. He circled, gave us a good look, then turned, flying off toward the I- 95 bridge, and disappeared like the all-American he is.
    
We all felt utterly foolish, but Ann Richards, the eternal optimist was cheering. “Never mind; he’s OK,” she said, hanging up on the police chief of Old Saybrook.
     
We couldn’t really understand it, but we supposed “Wally” was just showing off because eagles are a big factor in the Connecticut River Valley and even have certain “eagle” celebrations annually. And eagles in that part of Connecticut are not rare; only much loved and protected. We discovered that “Wally” was described as an “immature American eagle” because it would take four years for him to mature.
     
This is the summer for “Wally” to come back in his maturity. And I often think, if only Ann could come back too. 

Jeez. I had just been so daunted by Ms. McFadden’s response of sharing a gorilla nest that in my long moment of hesitation, the time has passed. I did, just by the way, have some good animal encounters — baboons rattling my door; crocodile nests; baby gorillas; sitting to pee on an upturned elephant jawbone at night when a lion, unseen, next to me behind a fence, suddenly roared so loud I fell off; hippos charging a canoe from underwater; charging elephants at close range; riding an ostrich and biting the dust; spending the afternoon next to lions sitting beside me, nuzzling my leg.