Back when Skyrim was first announced, this screenshot excited me more than any other. It wasn't dragons, and it had no giants. Crouched down low in the tall grass, a wood elf had stalked an elk in the distance, bow at the ready. It's an emergent story you can recreate in vanilla Skyrim, as there's wildlife that peppers the land, but modders (being modders) wanted more and better. They've taken a hatchet to the way wildlife works, and now with just three easy mods, you can create a hunting ground that's more friendly to your unfriendly loner hunter man.
Where the wild things are? Right here.
The first is Real Wildlife Skyrim, which focuses specifically on the way that creatures and animals in the northern reaches of Tamriel work. Not only does it make animals more common, it also introduces new types, ranging from interesting new variants like Artic Foxes and Red Wolves to juveniles, adults and matures, each ranging in size and threat, depending on quite how virile they are.
Speaking of virility, there's also a range of "lore-friendly" diseases, complete with hilarious names like Collywobbles and Droops, which unfortunately don't display with appropriately comical animations, but still provide an element of danger and excitement to tracking down your prey. Their insides are more fleshed out, too, with eyes, hearts, lungs and all the normal goodies now making much more of an appearance across the board, making your bloody haul much more worthy.
Time to bring home the bacon.
That's something that The Hunter's Life pays even more attention to, making the pelts and ingredients you pull from the raw carcasses of your kills even more worth holding on to. Not only does it increase their value, but it also lets you turn them into useful, treated leather using a tanners' rack. Cooked meats will also go for more coin, which lets you turn all those lungs and hearts into something more appetising to merchants. There are even plans down the road to let you turn them into rugs, both to sell and to decorate your Hunter's Cabin with.
They're harmless... until someone whips up a Hitchcock mod.
And just to round out that feeling of wildness and a living, breathing world, I present to you Birds and Flocks. It does absolutely nothing to change any game systems or mechanics, or give you anything new to kill and shoot, but does dramatically increase the bird population. Instead of just seeing a solitary eagle now and then, skies are filled with the intermittent flutter of wings, both within civilization and out in the wilds. It sounds trivial, but once you've got it installed and are roaming around Skyrim's landscape, it makes an incredible difference.
So head off, solemn hunter, and bag yourself a big one. For the thrill of the hunt!