Now that CNC is over for 2026, and we have all had a day to take a breath from making observations, I am curious. What species did you observe but missed a pic of? In other words - the one that got away.
For me it was a coyote. While common in many areas, there are fewer than 40 RG observations of them in the entire county in which I live. I saw a beautiful one, still with a thick winter coat, walking down the road I was on. I was able to stop and grabbed my camera as it trotted off. The result - the last few hairs of it’s tail.
What is the one that got away from you during this years CNC?
I was out at this little spot that rarely gets coverage and I got a brief view of a Yellow-breasted Chat in a window into some foliage. Before I could get a picture it disappeared and never came out. It was silent so I couldn’t even get an audio recording.
I saw a butterfly I believed was a hercules morpho, which I had never seen before. It flew by and landed somewhere, camouflaging in the vegetation close to the ground, perfect for a picture, if I could find it. I was with a friend who was well aware I like taking pictures of every single insect I see so he tried helping me by getting closer and pointing, he could see it and I could not. I kept staring and trying to see it, and he inched closer and pointed, I couldn’t see it, and this went on until he spooked the butterfly and it got away, sadly
With all the well-camouflaged and skittish/quick-moving arthropods I photograph, this happens multiple times a week. Sometimes it’s moths, but as of late it’s often mites with all the speed of Olympic sprinters. (It doesn’t help that they’re often already hard to photograph with a 15x macro lens…and that they’re transparent…and that it’s nighttime with a limited range of lighting equipment.) For the CNC period, I believe it was a green grasshopper, which I was able to track down for two hops away, but, alas, it evaded me on the third.
I narrowly missed an unusual-looking nomad bee which was feeding on dandelion flowers, my shutter is quite loud which disturbs things sometimes. A few minutes later a tree nearly fell on me as well.
I was out birding by a lake, when a bald eagle flew across the lake, over me and into dense trees behind me, it got close too (within camera range). It happened so fast I didn’t have time to get my camera into focus. It would have been so cool! 20 minuets before that happened a park ranger was talking to me about the resident bald eagle lives in these trees out here. I’m still bummed I missed that photo.
American Woodcock. Was taking photos of a mallard, and just kept getting closer, until suddenly right at my feet it flushed up and disappeared into tall grass, never to be seen again.
I carry a laser pointer for this reason. Usually I am the one to see things like that and it is hard to tell my hiking partners where it is, so I use the laser to point close to the organism. This way I don’t have to approach it, I can circle it or point and say something like ‘just above here’, or use it to trace the stick the organism is on, etc. I do try to be very careful not to touch the organism with the laser just in case it might be damaging. Once in a while one of my partners will see it and I can pass them the laser.
I saw two of this beautiful butterfly (Polydamas Swallowtail) but much like all the others, it never landed for long enough to photograph.
Oh, and a mantis! A very big mantis. Someone else in my detrashing party saw it and shared a picture, I approached him, asked where it was, he pointed, I saw it… and it ran away before I could take a picture.