How about the opposite? What are your best nature experiences ever?
I don’t know my own best experience, but not too long ago, a tiny frog jumped on my shoe. I was able to observe it closely, since it showed little fear. I had no camera with me, but for once I don’t really care. My best guess would be possibly green frog.
Another time, I was picking up a bird feeder pole which had fallen in a storm, and had a chickadee perching on it. For the whole ride, the bird stood there, and, when I had stuck the pole in the ground once more, started eating about a foot from my face.
My non-iNaturalist related experience (since those are the examples you gave lol) is that once, while I was setting out herbs to dry, a chickadee landed on my hat for some reason
My iNaturalist related experience was finding this beetle and realizing much later that it was actually really rare in the area
There are a lot of creatures that never make it onto iNaturalist because I often open a day hospital for bees and butterflies and even largers in need of A Moment’s Care.
Once it was super cold here (it does happen, at least by our standards, hahaha) and we found a small friend sort of stuck just inside our interior patio and a Ferruginous pygmy owl just outside finishing off another friend. It was a HORROR show, so we brought the too cold amigo inside and put him on a heating pad on low to warm him slowly.
When he was warm enough, he blinked twice, then yawned and stretched and then cutely dashed to the ceiling. He slipped out through the window that evening.
A few months ago an unwell possum fell from the high garden wall and unfortunately one of its legs broke so that the bone came through the skin. We delivered her to the zarigüeya project at UADY. Sadly she had to be euthanized however she had two small babies aboard and these were placed successfully with a surrogate to nurse and likely have already been released near Xmatkuil (where the veterinary school of UADY is). This one was a hard one.
Day before yesterday at a local hospital I found a lovely darner dragonfly in a stairwell on the third floor and demanded my husband assist me (not hard, he is the same) in gently capturing it so I could carry it in cupped hands down the stairs, through the halls and out to the street to release it where it ought to be.
I am not sure this makes me a great naturalist, as I am loath to let nature take its course, but these little moments make me happy and I have become quite proficient at helping the insects, especially. (They are the quickest.)
Insects scooped from puddles or the pool are sometimes brought inside to dry off away from predators. Bees worn out from fighting not to drown are offered their choice of nectars. (Butterflies are fans of bananas.) Insects whose preferences are low light are allowed to remain indoors until dawn/dusk. (In truth, it’s rare for the house to go a week without a visiting friend.)
The tortoiseshell butterflies were abundantly social this day. One clung to me like a lover. I guess I was the right flavor. It was on my hand so long I got bored with holding still. Still perched on my wrist, i just resumed walking up the trail with it for another 1/4 mile.
We were driving on a road near a college campus and I saw someone get and took a picture of a plant and I went “I bet that person is on iNaturalist”. My grandmom being one of the friendliest people ever called my bluff and rolled down the window and asked them and sure enough I was right.
Another recent highlight occurred when I was sitting still to get close-ups of small birds visiting one of my feeders. A red-breasted nuthatch landed in my beard and tried very hard to steal some hairs. I tried to get a shot but I’ve never tried to take a selfie before so I failed. The bird only gave up when I started to laugh.
I think this thread might be better titled “Best Nature Experiences Ever,” based on your examples.
Regardless of what we’re calling it, I think mine are all my close encounters with birds.
In 2019, I trained my local nuthatches to eat from my hand. I documented the process with videos, but haven’t uploaded them anywhere, so here’s a photo instead:
In January 2021, I had a similar experience with a mountain jay, although I didn’t have to put in the work first.
In December 2021, I found this sapsucker sitting below my kitchen window. It was uninjured, but let me hold it briefly before perching on my dad’s shirt and eventually flying away.
Finally, just last week I had an experience that I wasn’t able to document. I went outside and laid on a bench to rest, and after about half an hour, I felt a strange sensation of weight on my leg - as though a very small cat had leapt up on me. However, there were definitely no such cats in the area, and anyway it didn’t have nearly pointy enough claws for that. I kept still while I tried to figure out what was going on. (I was laying on my back, so that even with my eyes open I couldn’t see my legs without tilting my head up uncomfortably far, and that would have scared it off.) After a few seconds I realized it must be a bird that had landed on me! It then hopped across to my other leg before flying down to the ground. I continued laying there, hoping it would come back, but while I did hear one hopping around by my head a minute or two later, no more landed on me. It was an awesome experience despite not getting to see it. If I had to make a guess at species, I would say Spotted Towhee, since I heard some in the area and based on the weight on my leg it couldn’t have been anything smaller.
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