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Haha! Johnny, you and I posted the exact same thread at the exact same time! (I'll get the Towers to remove mine, since I've had plenty of threads up here recently.) 

I don't have anything to compare with Mark Cawardine's list, but have loved seeing:
- ospreys fishing from our boat's mast along the Eritrean coast;
- a dugong eating seaweed in a Sudanese marsa;
- twitchy Indian wild dogs feeding near a hillside temple in Kutch;
- a one-horned rhino and her calf in Assam;
- a hoopoe in Sussex, with my Dad when I was about five.

hey like minds eh?! well, part of the inspiration for this was also your recent lists. so, you know, group hugs and that!,,,

ooh dugong, Sudan, jealous!

Your list's pretty amazing, Johnny! Really interested in that bat exodus. The dugong looked like a giant potato. Such gentle and peaceful animals. :-)

Oh, I have high hopes for this thread! Mine are:
 - diving with Great White Sharks, South Africa
 - Southern Right Whale watching, South Africa
- Giant River Otters, Peru
- Cassowaries, Queensland
- Sloth bear mother and cub, Nepal

Oooh, so many, too hard (and also jealous of several of the above).
OK, would probably have to be..
- King penguins on South Georgia - hundreds of thousands of them along a dazzling beach
- Leopards in South Luangwa, especially the one that was sprawled across a path in front us one afternoon (we were on foot)
- A clouded leopard, seen from a hide in Taman Negara National Park, Malaysia
- Orcas - some fantastic sightings off Vancouver Island and the San Juan Islands
- Humpback whales, Maui. Seen from the balcony of my room, as well as plenty of up close encounters

Well, from the above posts it looks like I need to get out in the ocean to see the top wildlife!  All my top 5 are land (or river) based.  And I can't believe anybody hasn't said Elephants yet...

So...

1.  Wild Elephants in Liwonde National Park, after 3 days of not seeing any we turned a corner in a wooded area and came face to face with 4 female elephants and a baby - AMAZING!
2. Pink river dolphins in the rivers of the Pampass grass of Bolivia (where we also saw capybara, pirahna, caimen and anacondas) 
3. White tailed monkeys with big eyes on the slopes of Kilimanjaro, Tanzania
4. Wild Black Rhino in Chitwan National Park Nepal - viewed from the back of an Elephant
5. Racoons drinking from a hummingbird feeder in Qubec Canada

Whale watching in Boston, USA

black bear in Alberta, Canada

Walking amongst giraffes and zebra in Kenya

glow worms in Derbyshire, England

Lion and jackals just after a kill in the Ngorongoro, Tanzania

Seeing a whale - Southern Right or Humpback  I have no idea but it was BIG - in False Bay, S Africa from a friend's garden in 1980. First time I'd seen one despite living there for several years and it was amazing!

Ellies in Addo, South Africa and also in Chobe - fantastic experiences. I can watch elephants all day, but admit to being a little nervous when they approach your hire car!

Black bears around Tofino, Vancouver Island. Seeing these animals in their natural environment was quite emotional.

Hearing lions and hyaena in Etosha, Namibia whilst in a tent during the night - surreal. Seeing lions close up in Addo was very scary!

African Penguins in Boulders, Cape Town in 2000. Absolutely astonishing sight. I used to go to Boulders beach in the '70s / '80s when all you had to worry about was battling for a parking space. It was quite surprising to see the beach overrun with penguins on my visit there in December 2000. 

...and if I can have a 6th then visiting a farm in Namibia to see cheetahs and leopards being fed. Such beautiful creatures and so close you felt you could reach out and stroke them, but probably not a wise idea.

A wild clouded leopard, Lyn. Wow.

Liz, yes, it was incredible luck. I spent the night in a hide with  a few other people, and we had a rota so that there was always someone on lookout. We'd put some food down, and this attracted civets - which we had been told to expect. But then a big cat appeared. We woke everyone up and watched it for a few precious moments. Back at the park headquarters we rushed in to report what we had seen. They tried to convince us that it was probably a leopard cat as one had been spotted around there. However, we knew it wasn't.
I went on to Singapore Zoo from there. so went to have a look at the cats. My hunch was confirmed - it was definitely a clouded leopard we had seen. Such a privilege.

- Watching grey wolves hunting elk in Yellowstone.
- Seeing a pair of Orang Utans in the trees on the river in Borneo.
- Seeing a troupe of Proboscis monkeys, also in Borneo.
- Being very close, in an old open top coach, to a grizzly in Yellowstone.
- Watching an otter from a hide on the Isle of Skye.

Off on a road trip to the States again on Sunday, wonder what we will get to see this time.

watching a Snow Leopard wander across a hillside and sit on a ridge and watch us in the late afternoon at minus 10C in a frozen valley in Ladakh.