I saw a mink once, but it was trying to kill my chickens so I was too busy chasing it away to get a picture.
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Yes, skinks (all lizards really) are so fast! Luckily they usually stop after a short dash when I get close so I can get a reasonable picture most of the time
I often miss rare birds I see around my college town because I donāt have my camera on-hand since Iām just walking between classes. That said, my most memorable miss was my first ever Black Bear; I saw it running from the van I was in while traveling in the Cascades with the Seattle Audubon Young Birders a few years back, but by the time we had all pooled out of it, the bear had run back into the treeline and vanished. I donāt think Iāve seen once since then.
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Ugh youāve remined me that I missed getting a shot of a massive softshell in the Everglades. I feel your pain.
And that sounds like a great experience with the eagles. Still a great thing to see even if you couldnāt get a photo
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Maybe sacrifice one egg to it and you can get a good shot! Hopefully that keeps it away from your chickens too
Raccoon dogs are so interesting, very unfortunate you couldnāt get a good shot.
In regards to the hares, I usually have the same issue with birds and lizards so Iāve started to have my camera (phone) in my hand and ready to take a shot as Iām walking on a trail
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We reinforced the fence with smaller wire (it could slip through the large holes) and it hasnāt come back.
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Hopefully you get to see a black bear again, I always love to see large mammals, especially carnivorans.
I actually got a pretty good picture earlier today of a hawk, from the bus, so Iām happy about that. Itās a rarity.
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I have a couple of missed black bear opportunities as well, usually running across/away from the road. The ones I did catch on camera were down in the Smokies where I guess they are so used to people stopping and piling out of cars to get a picture of them that itās just a normal part of their day I guess.
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Flying low and not looking where it was going!
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Merged another topic here
Once I saw an american badger, which is rare in Ontario (fewer than 200), and didnāt have enough time to take out my camera. Another time, I saw a pileated woodpecker in Algonquin Provincial Park, which is not found in my area, and once again, I couldnāt get my camera out in time.
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Dunno if this is āTruly Epicā, but when coming back from school (on my auntās motorbike) I saw a Common redshank (a lifer for me) on a mudflat. We stopped, and I got quite close. But we forgot to pack my phone in auntās purse, so I missed it :(
Today I saw one, but there was huge traffic and we were getting late so we couldnāt stop to photograph it :(
Tomorrow hopefully I catch him, wish me luck :[
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That area is the only place I can reliably see more than one species of Sandpiper, namely:
- Whimbrel
- Common Redshank
There is one recent, confirmed sighting of the only sandpiper I have seen elsewhere:
- Common Sandpiper
And one old sighting from last year:
- Black-tailed Godwit
Hereās a list: https://ebird.org/barchart?r=L12271599,L13499538,L16921893
Thereās definitely a ton of missed opportunities on species that I want to document, but one of the more epic ones would definitely be the leopard cat, since the ones I encountered are quite elusive and shy, theyād be gone already before I was able to react and get my camera out for a record
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I was lazy to go out looking for butterflies one day and decided to sleep in, then someone found this: Malay Guava Blue (Subspecies Virachola subguttata malaya) from Mandai Rd Track 7, Singapore on August 07, 2019 at 12:14 PM by Tsang Kwok Choong Ā· iNaturalist
I was planning to go to the exact same location where the observer had found this extremely rare butterfly (itās not been sighted in Singapore for six decades; you can read all about it here: SINGAPORE BIODIVERSITY RECORDS XXXX: XX (nus.edu.sg)), where i would have met him and definitely would have shot the butterfly as well. I remember him saying that it was a complete fluke and that the butterfly was unusually docile, which because of its pristine condition, makes me suspect that it had just freshly eclosed. The observer was a nice old man who has since passed away, unfortunately.
So yeah, i think about this a lot
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Donāt feel bad, I was Fly Fishing on Sanibel Island a few years ago, and had two different Ospreys dive bomb fish less than 20 yards from me, both within 10-15 minutes of each other, and didnt get a pic of either of them!
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In 1997, I was part of a team supporting a group of women who were traversing the Himalaya - east to west - from Arunachal Pradesh to the tip of Ladakh (Karakoram Pass).
I was with them for 67 days (of their total journey time of some 220 odd days) - only trekking - no vehicles ā just walking and 99.9% of the route was the high Himalaya
Needless to say that during the 67 days we saw some amazing landscapes and an incredible variety of life.
These are my few favourites - among the many
In the Valley of flowers I was ahead of the group by about 100 metres or so. In the quiet of the morning and I was also really quiet I emerged onto a small grassy opening on a plateau - ringed on two sides by steepish slopes - there was a Musk Deer that was dozing and enjoying the morning sun. The Musk Deer soon saw me and took off up one of the steep slopes like a rocket and disappeared in almost the blink of an eye
The second was was a group of Tibetan Wild Ass that emerged on the top of a ridge at dawn just after a snow storm.
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I can relate to that. My family was moving cross-country, camping along the way. Pocono Mts of Pennsylvania, a black bear barged through our campsite on its way to the next campsite, where people were cooking supper. I was too busy dodging out of its way and trying to avoid tripping over the fire circle to think about going for my camera.
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