Spotted something huge in the creek behind my property last night, not a deer

Right so this is exactly the kind of thing I want to hear more about. What were you actually seeing in terms of size - are we talking larger than a deer at the shoulder, or just a different shape altogether? Because those are two very different things.

I do a fair bit of field work down near the river margins here in Cornwall and you'd be surprised what shows up at night that doesn't match anything you'd expect. The way light reflects off water messes with your depth perception too so something average-sized can look absolutely massive depending on angle.

That said, creek habitats are genuinely underreported for cryptid sightings, probably because most people assume whatever they saw was just livestock or a dog.

Did it make any noise, and did it seem aware of you? Behaviour is honestly more useful than size for narrowing this down. If you can describe how it moved that would help a lot. Was it wading or moving along the bank?

@QuietRaven size alone doesn't tell you much tbh, the shape is what matters. Was it low-slung or upright? Because a lot of creek sightings people assume are big cats or mystery creatures turn out to have a really distinctive shoulder hump or gait that doesn't match anything native. If you can describe how it was moving - like whether the hindquarters were higher than the front, or if it was moving smoothly vs a loping kind of stride - that narrows it down massively. I've been interested in this stuff for a while and the creek/waterway sightings seem to follow certain patterns, the animal is almost always either drinking or moving parallel to the water rather than crossing it. Did it seem aware of you at all?