Crazy (or strange) things you'll do for observations

Agreed. Not only that but my x16 hand lens doesn’t really resolve much more details than my naked eyes but it does make the details look bigger.

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I hope they wish you good luck finding what you’ve lost! Hah, just today had a policemen walking past me and giving me THAT kind of look when I was photographing a fly on my hand. xD Also as I usually search for insects on the walls, there was a group of teens going inside the building and talking between them about what a crazy person I am, why am I doing photos of a wall?!

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Lying on the floor filled with duck poop in a public garden full of people, left elbow in water with carps the size of my arm nibbling me, the LCD at 45 degrees trying to make shooting angle, only one hand holding the camera above water, lots of people looking at me like I was crazy… So much that could have gone wrong. But the gods of birding have rewarded my juggling:

https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/40305880

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  1. Casually scooping up dead beetles and butterflies near my office and hiding them in a backpack / pockets. I work in IT for a corporation, so this attracts some weird looks. Same with taking casual pictures of insects that are on the pavement there, I got some bonus weird stares by doing this in front of a bistro with large windows.

  2. Searching for some interesting insects at night in a park with a flashlight. One may find some awesome carbids that way.

  3. Picking up dead birds for my colleagues who are ornithologists or ringers.

  4. My favourite weird things is checking the city hall at night since they have bright lights there and white or yellowish walls. I have done this a lot last season, every time the security guy comes to check what is up, so I greet him with casual “Good evening, I am photographing moths here.” None asked me for cool moth facts so far :/

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YOU ARE MY PEOPLE!! :grinning:

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Ha, yeah, it seems like the majority of the time when someone asks what I’m photographing my honest answer is something like “those giant wasps!!” I get a better response when it’s “an oriole!” but sometimes they’re into the giant wasps too, which is awesome!

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Falling into a swamp while taking a pic of a grass snake. Luckily the day was not warm and the snake just watched me placidly while I finally got a picture standing in a water well above my knees. I did not catch cold, too.

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All you guys make me laugh, and make me feel better about the odd things I sometimes do for the sake of getting a cool iNat observation!

Somewhere in my apartment I have a big button that says “Mad Scientist”. That can be useful to wear on my hat, so I can point to it if someone asks me what the heck I am doing.

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lol… I’m picturing Susan turning her flat upside down, and a bewildered visitor asking “what are you doing?”, to which Susan says “I’m looking for the Mad Scientist button so I can point to it as you ask that question…”

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I have been known to scale cliffs trying to get pictures of orchids, it is certainly a challenge to take good pictures while balancing on a vertical rock face.

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I also talked my mom into driving me to Minnesota to look for orchids (about 14 hours each way). The trip also involved walking about 7 miles in ankle-deep water (on a hot sunny day) while looking for said orchids.

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I almost did the same thing looking for a drumming woodpecker that I never did find! I was covered in countlessly many scrapes and tons of dirt afterwards.

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I once spent a few hours looking at microscope slides of my own poop. Unfortunately (or fortunately?) I didn’t see anything worth putting on iNat. I will try again sometime with dog poop that’s been sitting outside for awhile. I expect that will have more things in it.

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almost full body Leaning out of the second story window to take a picture of an assassin bug on the wall. :neutral_face:

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oh my goooood :joy:

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Oh, I do that sometimes! I haven’t gotten any great observations so far, though. This is just about the only one. Hopefully, as the weather up here warms, we’ll get more bugs around.

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Related - GPS’ed my own poop to return to it repeatedly for flies / beetles.

Also chased a cricket across a vertical cliff face.

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Lol, did you catch it?

@bug_girl I can merge all of these posts with “you know you’re seriously…” if you want me to. Sometimes when we catch these threads too late in the game we don’t end up merging because it’s a little messy but I’d be in favor of having all the good funny iNat obsession stuff in one topic though I’d ask for people to follow the structure of “you…” if so. Thoughts?

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You can merge if you want. I am not sure, so it is up to you.