Probably my most dangerous observation was an as-yet-non-uploaded hawk of some sort I found in Costa Rica. It was flying away and I was trying to photograph it but a nearby woman’s overprotective, off-leash dogs began barking, circling around me, and even biting me! I only got two very distant photos of the hawk, I hope they’re IDable…
I’ve also come across a few rattlesnakes in my time, and almost missed the first one–a Red Diamond Rattlesnake! I very nearly stepped on it before it loudly hissed, it didn’t rattle at all! I should have been paying more attention, though. A similar situation happened with this Great Basin rattlesnake I found during fieldwork last year, though I saw this one from further away and only went close enough to get some distant cellphone pictures. It was especially dangerous, though, as I was in a pretty remote area.
My brother and I learnt that lesson when he poked his finger under a ledge in a rock-pool and a blue-ringed octopus popped out. But that was long before iNaturalist existed.
I started to photograph a White-browed Scrubwren that was close by in a small bush. As I was looking at it through the viewfinder I noticed that it was fairly animated and making hell of a racket (pic below). Then all of sudden it dawned on me that I had seen this behaviour before, and about 2 nanoseconds after that I realised what was going on. Sure enough there was a Tiger Snake about 2-3 meters to my right. I got some photos of the snake https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/193007378 (from a safe distance) and the little bird that maybe saved me from having a very bad day.
I’ve never been personally victimized by an organism that I’ve observed, though I did get very close to what I later found out was a deer fly. Hindsight was 20/20 on that one!
That being said, one observation that’s really stuck with me since I’ve seen it is this one in which the observer became a host for human botfly larvae “on purpose”. I’d highly recommend the human hosts project for similar observations, or the Mistakes have been made project for more broadly risky encounters.
Besides having coyotes, who are typically just curious, check me out on a few occasions, I think the closest I came to danger was when, while houseboating on Lake Shasta in northern California, I went exploring up on a wooded hill above where we tied the boat for the night.
I was probably gone a couple of hours. Shortly after my return a large mountain lion came down the same path had come down. When it came onto a nearby gravel bar it lunged to catch a couple of feeding deer. Missing the deer it gave a loud roar, saw us and returned to the woods. I could easily have been dinner, and I didn’t even get a picture.
That has happened to me a couple of times, being invaded by dozens of tick nymphs at once certainly feels dangerous (and probably is, since it’s close to impossible to find every single one of them before some attach, and every bite increases the risk of lyme disease). I’m kind of used to donate some blood to the local arthropod population every summer, luckily not too many of them carry diseases around here.
Other than that I once had a really scary encounter with a female moose and her two calves, they were apparently hiding out in a small forest patch in the town I live, and I startled them while exploring there. Luckily they just ran away, but all the stories I had heard about aggressive female moose with calves attacking people almost made me crap my pants when they started panicking after I surprised them in the thickets.
I startled a copperhead once so I guess I’m part of the club of people with close encounters with venomous snakes.
I’ve also been chased by white-faced hornets after accidentally bumping their home tree with a lawn mower but that was during yard work and not while being out iNatting. It did turn into several iNat observations though once I knew the nest was there.
You are very lucky! Their stings, while no dangerous feel as described by an entomologist: “Like getting your finger constantly slammed in a door”
For me the worst encounter I’ve had is a is probobly with a Florida Harvester Ant, of course it is all my fault because I handled it knowing I would likely get stung.
See:
Like most species belonging to the genus Pogonomyrmex, P. badius is equipped with a stinger capable of delivering a highly potent and painful neurotoxic venom adapted for defense against predatory vertebrates. [12] The venom of this species is considerably toxic, with a mice LD50 of 0·42 μg/g - comparable to the most toxic snake venoms. [13] Despite being so toxic, the yield per sting is significantly low, with dozens of stings being required to cause potential harm to a healthy adult. P. badius is also a rather docile ant, being reluctant to sting unless forced to, with stings usually occurring when the ant is trapped against the skin in some way.
I had to see how true this was. It felt like getting a blood pressure check x10 for an hour and I had to hike a mile back to get ice on it. Unfortunately, I didn’t escape with only one sting although they are fairly docile and 9/10 times you won’t get stung.
i’ve approached some paper wasp nests, but never had any issues. once a skunk almost ran at me to tell me to back off… thankfully i wasn’t sprayed, lol.
have never been charged at by Bumble bees and I am right up on their faces taking pictures. Perhaps there was a nest close by. Carpenter Bees will try to chase you off but it’s just for show as the male can’t even sting you.
In the Caribbean several times I have been surrounded by thorn bushes and huge bull nettles when trying to get from A. to B. The plants were more bothersome than the local fauna ever was. Except maybe for fire ants.
Accidental trespassing and being chased (as fast as I could run ) by some dogs that were VERY not stoked I was on their land and really really really wanted to bite me. This happens a lot when exploring random side trails and user made mountain bike trails, lol. Got some sweet plants and mushroom photos tho
And then there are snakes. All encounters were harmless, even with highly poisonous tropical snakes (whose species I only learned later on after submitting my photos here). One (hramless) snake was mistaken as a slow worm, but it behaved too snakey: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/137775490
I twice tried to observe the wild guinea pigs in Bogotá. There is a park in the west of the city where they seem to have been observed a lot.
First time I went there the part of the park where they were observed was under construction. A pitty, but I had fun observing there anyways. So I went back there some months later, when the construction was hopefully finished. It was, but I only then found out you cannot enter this part of the park without a guide you need to book in advance. I was disappointed and saw that the guinea pigs had been observed outside the park as well in just a short distance. I started walking, but I did feel unsafe… I did ignore my gut feeling and got robbed by a guy with a large kitchen knife.
Worst part is, as I did not have a phone anymore, I had to walk to the main street to catch a bus instead of calling a taxi to the entrance of the (safe) park and almost got robbed a second time. Two guys passed me by bike and slowed, turned around several times and then decided to come back. I was lucky that before they reached me a bus stopped and I was safe.
Lesson learned - always trust your gut feeling.
PS: still don’t have an observation of those guinea pigs, but have seen them several times now at the autopista… will not try to see them in this park again
Speaking of hornet nests, a funny thing happened in the dorm in college. On a cold winter day some of the guys went out hiking in the woods and brought a hornets nest back to the dorm room and hung it from the ceiling. Once the hornets warmed, they came out of the nest. Talk about upset hornets - fortunately no one got stung. However, I was once stung on the back of the neck by a Bald-faced Hornet but had no pain except when I pulled the stinger out after I swatted and killed it while it was still stinging. I have always found this strange, and lucky.
) by some dogs that were VERY not stoked I was on their land and really really really wanted to bite me. This happens a lot when exploring random side trails and user made mountain bike trails, lol. Got some sweet plants and mushroom photos tho 
