A couple years ago when I was releasing a westland petrel a bat flew past my head. I have never seen one of our bats in the wild. As a rule I dont trust what I have seen until I can verify, so I was ready to throw it in the maybe basket. But that evening I happened to have someone with me who asked “Did you see that bat” which was enough for me to credit the possibility. Of course it was relatively dark at that stage even if I knew I was going to see it I doubt I would have caught it on camera. But its still awesome to know they are around.
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It’s not quite the same, but I got a whole host of cool observations in belize (including various toucans etc.), and then lost my camera without being able to upload them. Missing out on observations in a different way there!
However, one thing that I’ve found really useful is to keep a ‘Ones That Got Away’ list, where I put casual, photoless observations of animals I knew that I saw but was unable to take a photo of. They won’t get added to any databases, being casual, but exist more for my record, and as something of a challenge to myself to try and see them again!
Definitely removes the sting from not being able to photograph an animal, and allows it still to be an amazing experience without as much of that kicking yourself feeling!
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About a year and a half ago, I was hiking through the foothills of the Northern Drakensberg here in South Africa. Coming down a very steep and lush mountain slope, I saw something from the corner of my eye, a tiny dark brown butterfly on a rock, with subtle orange banding on its forewings. It was a Rocksitter, a rare Genus of butterfly in the country with each species having a very localized range of occurence in the east to west D-berg escarpment. I whipped my camera out and slowly made my way towards it. Fiddled with the settings for the best focus, zoomed in, and just as I was about to grab an awesome photo… Boom - it flew away - Gutted! I ran after it for a good few meters but eventually it gave me the duck
To this day I still get misty eyed when I think about that. Wasn’t the first time such a thing happened and sure it won’t be the last
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How unlucky!
A good tip I read a while ago to make this kind of thing less likely it to start taking photos much further away, keep moving closer and taking more photos then keep the best one. If you scare the animal away then at least you have a photo even if it’s not as close as you’d have liked. Of course I frequently forget to do this!
Not “truly epic” but I saw a kestrel hovering a couple of meters away from me when cycling a week of two ago. Of course I scared it off as soon as I noticed it by saying “wow!” out loud even though there was no one else there. Later I saw a stoat crossing a country lane. I initially thought it was a grey squirrel. By the time I realised hat I was looking at it was too late to stop and get a picture. I think I’ve only seen a stoat twice before that.
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I generally don’t get anything ‘epic’, but have lost my fair share of shots. About a month ago a Compton Tortoiseshell was on the back wall of our house (first one of the season). I knew if I tried to sneak up on it, it would fly, so I grabbed my camera, ran through the house and out the front door in order to sneak up on it from the other side. I sidled up to the corner, peeked around back, and the rotten thing was only about 20 cm from the corner. Of course it took off and flew over the neighbours 2m high fence. Spring is also migration time, and trying to get some of those small birds is almost impossible. They never sit still, and if they do they fly away as soon as I get them in the frame. I think the bird Gods hate me!
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Hello, I’m new to the forums, but I had to join when I read this thread… a couple of years ago I came across a bobcat (the only one I’ve ever seen in the wild) trying to kill a large ratsnake while driving along Old Mine Road by the Delaware River in NJ. My camera was in a backpack and by the time I wrestled it out, someone had come up behind me and started blowing their horn, scaring the cat off (the snake seems to have survived and also fled). I managed to get one shot of it’s retreating behind in the distance… such a bad picture it could be mistaken for a large dog. I call it my “Bigfoot Photo” since it’s just an out-of-focus shot of the animal a long way off that I’m always trying to explain REALLY IS a bobcat…
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Welcome to the forum! That is terrible, lol. I like that you named it, never really thought about naming the pictures. Now I have another thing to do. ;-)
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Wow what an incredible sight that must have been! I’ve been to Patagonia lake a bunch of times and have only seen cattle, some cool dung beetles, and turkey vultures stealing picnic food like seagulls at the beach.
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Welcome to the forum!
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My saddest missed chance was in the pre-iNat era. I was walking along the jungle path in Pulau Ubin, Singapore, very unsuitably shod with sandals, and suddenly I spotted two huge beetles on a log some distance away from the path. My little camera had no zoom, and I was a little cautious to walk almost barefoot on the jungle floor. So no pictures of the lovely beetles… Now I’d probably even walk barefoot.
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Hi and welcome to the forum @nilshelstrom! That sounds like an amazing experience. Bigfoot photo or not, at least you have some sort of proof it happened.
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Let’s see, the top three I can think of off the top of my head are Mountain Lion in the Chiricahua Mountains in SE Arizona - I was on a young birders camp last summer, we were doing night drive for herps when suddenly one of the campers yells “MOUNTAIN LION” we through the van into reverse then I saw it but we had again gone too far in reverse as I didn’t say anything quick enough, so we finally got to the spot and it was gone so obviously missed the opportunity to snap a pic. One recent one was a Grey Wolf at Necedah NWR in central Wisconsin - I was driving on the refuge roads when suddenly a wolf runs across the road, I tried to track it down but to no avail and again couldn’t get a pic. And finally a couple years ago i had a run in with a massive male Black Bear - pretty much the same as the Wolf (location and everything) but I was outside the car and 20 feet behind me this huge bear runs out, scared the crap out of me, and ran away, before I could pull my phone out to get a pic.
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Wow, lol, that’s pretty cool!
This was before i got my underwater camera gear, but during my first dive to 30 m on the swedish west coast, me and my buddy observed a medium sized individual of the genus Raja (either a R. clavata or R. radiata) at 25 m depth in one of our regular diving spots. Never since have i seen one.
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A chance to document a truly epic observation?
Happens any and every time I go outside without my camera.
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True, very true, lol.
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A little more than a week ago, I saw a living European badger for the first time, but I had left my DSLR + tele lens at home. A few days ago, I had a pretty close encounter with a red kite; I even had my tele lens on, but the battery of my camera died some minutes earlier…
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One time I was hiking back to my car at Caddo Lake, Texas side, and saw a huge pawprint. I thought, is that a cougar print? Nah, it’s probably a huge dog. I should probably take a photo, but I’m so so tired.
So I got in my car and drove home. A few days later, someone reported a cougar sighting in the same area.
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well, one day I was cycling in a long road along a sandy beach in the coastal desert of Northern Chile, when I saw three killer whales, a male, a female and a calf, approximately 2 meters from the shoreline, it was shocking. Sadly, I was in my hippy days, with no mobiles or camera with so Iiterally missed the CHANCE of my life, actually no one of my friend believed me, as orcas arent common in the shore of that area.
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A few weeks ago, i was walking with a friend at nightfall in a countryside in western France, it was getting dark and the weather was foggy. Everything was very quiet like frozen in time. And then we spotted something huge running in the distance in an open field before disappering in the forest. It was impossible to identify due to the bad visibility but it was big, very fast and running in a straight line with its head close to the ground. Unlike anything i’ve seen in the area. Honestly it really looked like a wolf, but none were spotted here in the last 100 years. (wolf are slowly coming back to France after disappearing in the last century, but very few were spotted and the closest sighting was a 100 km south). I though maybe of a big dog, but there are no wild dogs in France, so unlikely… Anyway, i will probably never know for sure what it was and this is very frustrating…
(Sorry for my english i am not a native speaker)
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