My story of an observation turned dangerous is a long one – once me and a friend were kayaking along the Chesapeake Bay during a field trip when we noticed that these spine-waisted ants had infested the boat. My friend had a panic attack, we pulled the boat to shore, and we had another friend tow us to shore in his kayak. In those waters we found a jellyfish swimming close to us – I learned after the fact that that species readily stings and with little provocation.
Turns out, wading through a naturally forming pond in a mountain with no one there to help you if something goes wrong is a very bad and stupid idea. Most of them, including the one I stupidly decided to wade through, do not have proper bottoms and it’s just a large mass of dead plants and mud, you can drown so easily. (I no longer go into ponds to look at things)
Yeah… Not a good idea. I have waded streams here in Northeast Ohio in rubber boots chasing dragonflies. It’s not as dangerous as mountain ponds in Colorado. But, you can get into real trouble. I am always careful to make sure the water level isn’t more than a foot, the water flow is slow and the bottom is visible. The muddy bottom can get very soft. So, I step slowly, take small steps and make sure I am standing steadily on both feet before I even think about taking out my camera. If there is any question in my mind about whether or not the footing is suspect, I won’t walk in places. But, if you are careful, wading after dragonflies can be rewarding.
I peeve off these barn swallows by trying to take their pic outside. Wasn’t even that closed to them. But they defiantly knew and let know they were not happy about the attention, by dive bombing me. But’s that as close as i got to a “dangerous” observation.
I was waiting for the image focus to sharpen up, when a I heard a nasty barking and the sound of a dog running towards me. I thought I could snap the pic and quickly climb up on the nearby shed, but the dog reached me, stopped, investigated me, sniffed me and my hands, https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/160722144
and just sat near me. I walked away.
It was a rottweiler-lab looking mutt, and my kneeling pose while photographing did not challenge the smart dog, I surmise.
While working in Gorongosa National Park in Mozambique, a colleague and myself were investigating termite mound vegetation. We were well aware that working in a large wildlife area is not without risks we always had a good look around before approaching. We had been at it for quite a while without any problems but one afternoon we were getting out of the car and about to walk over to another termite mound, when our field assistant in a near whisper, as if afraid to let out the secret, said:“Ahmmm… isn’t that a lion?” Indeed a big male lion was half hidden and dozing on the very mound we were about to go and investigate. Nothing happened, we got back into the car to go look for another more “accessible” mound. The lion did not even bother to look up but this could have gotten very wrong had we walked closer so many thanks to the excellent 20/20 vision of our field assistant.
Oh, that reminds me of my first year of fieldwork in Afrika way before I joinesd iNat. I was so excited as that was my first time on the continent. I woke up very early and when the first suntlight appeared I crabbed my camera and went around the area of the field station to look for bugs. I was so focussed on the tiny creepy crawlies that I almost did not see the huuuuuge elephant bull that had broken open the gate and wandered around the premisses just like 20m in front of me to find delicious green… wow, what a shocker… they are so much larger in the wild and this could have gone bad. I quickly stepped back into the house and waited him out and for others to wake up… I guess never trust the safety of a fence in wild Afrika
30+ stings from the relentless attack that sent me running for well over a mile. I actually felt “poisoned” for a good 48 hours or so. Phobic now, giving wide berth to all yellow jackets seen on or off trail.
the other day I got very close to getting an eyeful of baby poison ivy leaves while bending over to look at a wildflower I didnt recognize (swamp saxifrage). I can’t imagine that feeling very good. I try to stay aware of my surroundings, but I was so excited!!
while studying abroad in the Amazon rainforest, this bullet ant was crawling right next to me on the side of the canoe. I wasn’t really in danger, but it definitely made me nervous. our guide flicked it off very casually. later some of the guides showed us their scars from bullet ant bites/stings, haha.
last summer while leading a group of kids on a nature walk, one of them stumbled into a ground-nesting yellow jacket nest and around 7 of the kids got multiple stings. it was the scariest moment ive had outdoors, mostly because I was responsible for all of them! but we handled it very well and nobody was seriously injured. I love wasps, but it was a good reminder to be wary around the social ones.
plus bites and scratches from small raptors while banding. those claws are no joke!
I am a little confused by the talk about bumblebees. I hang out in flowerbeds watching all kinds of bees, including bumblebees. I have never had them behave remotely aggressively.
The most dangerous things I run into are usually dogs and humans. But, I have come too close to death by weather, a bull (cattle), lakes side embankment collapsing, being shot at etc.
Danger is part of adventure and also being not that good at seeing when someone is not nice.
This happened outside the park. I met a police patrol just minutes after I was robbed and they stopped the wrong guy… the right one was already gone. I have been really stupid there ane I knew it. Bogotá is known to be insecure and one should really trust your guts.
Funny thing is, I had my DSLR with me. I only did, because I expect it to break down any minute and loosing it would be a good excuse to finally get a new one. I had it in my bag at this moment, because I felt so unsafe… but the robbers here are quite specialized on smartphones (they know that everybody has at least that on them) so he just wanted that and was gone in an instance. So my old EOS is still with me
(Forum Moderators, feel free to delete/hide this if the themes/content are too much for the forum)
I have a pretty interesting story to tell, it isn’t the organisms or habitats that made the observations dangerous, but unrelated medical issues that lead to some observations coming into existence.
I recently went through a self-inflicted overdose, which resulted in a drug induced episode leading to a 36 hour gap in my memory. During that gap I was still walking around and doing things, albeit extremely inebriated and not fully conscious, I somehow lost my phone and clip-on macro lens.
The Tasgius observation is the last thing I remember photographing, everything else was during the overdose, and you can see in the latest plant observation, that half of them are drifting and blurry, there were well over 50 of those blurry “nothing photos” on the phone and I’m assuming my device was discarded and lost right after.
Thankfully, the incident didn’t cause many long-lasting problems for me, and I’m in great health now!
