John Pantherbone usually captures video while driving for insurance reasons, but this spring he caught not one, but two unusual animal incidents.
"I think [dashcams are] really important to catch accidents," he tells V.I.A. "But it can also catch wild and crazy things like nature and animals."
Fly like a koi-gle
The first incident happened at UBC at the end of April. Pantherbone was riding his motorcycle on Southwest Marine Drive when he spotted something coming down the roadway...in the air.
"At first I saw an eagle, and then as it got closer I saw the bright orange," Pantherbone says.
The orange was a big, wriggling fish.
Pantherbone thinks it was a koi.
"It was a shock, because I knew the UBC Nitobe Garden was nearby," he says, noting he thinks the huge bird "likely grabbed one from the pond."
In the video, the eagle can be seen coming down the roadway (on the correct side of the road) and flying past the motorcycle.
Luckily, Pantherbone had captured the bizarre sight on his helmet-mounted camera.
Squirrel comes face-to-face with death
Just over a week later, Pantherbone was driving down West 12th Avenue in his vehicle, with the dashcam on.
This time, he spotted a squirrel trying to cross the road ahead of him.
"I saw the squirrel going across the road," he describes. "I was nervous it was going to be hit by the opposite car."
In the video, it's unclear if the squirrel relied on luck, skill, or reactions. What is clear is that it flips out and appears to bounce off the car's door, just escaping the tires.
The critter then collects its wits quickly and runs back to the side of the road.
"I think maybe it had bad vision, got scared, and jumped; it probably saved its life," Pantherbone says of the leap.
Pantherbone says he'll keep the cameras running.
"You don't know what you're going to catch," he says.
