I recognize I’ve seen stick and rope snakes here in my area too hehe.
Is your dog ok?
I’ve been “bitten” so many times by Wild Oats (Avena fatua) and Slender Wild Oats (Avena barbata) which easily poke theough socks and shoe mesh when dry. Every time, I think “That’s it, I’m losing my toe/foot today!”
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Yes. Both dogs are fine. This is about the fourth time my little dog has been bitten by a copperhead (she likes to stick her face where it doesn’t belong) so she has scars all over her muzzle. But we give them benadryl to take the swelling down and they are fine. But we did also take them to the vet so they’ve also had antibiotics and some pain medication. The dog that was bitten last week is also doing well and you’d never know he was bitten at this point.
It’s the rattlesnakes that are really the problem for dogs. About ten years ago, a rattlesnake killed one of our little dogs (our little dogs are Jack Russell terriers). It broke my heart.
Sometimes I just pack up the dogs and take them to the coast for the month of August just to get them away from all the snakes during the period when the snakes are the most active around here.
But we do our best to keep the dogs safe. You just never know where a snake might be, though. Especially during August.
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I know exactly what you mean. I’ve often thought: well, that’s it. I’m dead.
Thankfully, that hasn’t been true. Yet.
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Great stories! I’m surprised nobody’s mentioned slime molds. Some of them, like Fuligo septica (Dog vomit slime mold). On at least one occasion, for me… well, it wasn’t slime mold at all!
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I once photographed heavily weathered yellow paint markings while photographing lichen species and only noticed it after I already uploaded it to iNaturalist.
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While uploading today, I was tricked again. And I didn’t know until after, but the reason my son took the picture for the observation was because he was also tricked. That made me feel a little less goofy. Or maybe we are just both goofy. Anyway: http://www.inaturalist.org/observations/131107978
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I admit I almost got tricked too, it looks a lot like one of those potoo birds.
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Fun thread!
And yes OP, I likely would have had the same excitement with the rope…
I have had similar instances many times.
This one had me thinking I came across some cool fungi thingy.
But to save a bit of time, short answer is yes.
In no particular order:
Bubble gum of a variety of colors.
Clothing/fabric… even a purple running shoe.
Beads from broken bracelets in the middle of the forest that glow under UV.
But the one that gets me, and is an ongoing joke, is my mistaking an orange peel for a wax cap. I don’t know what my personal record is, but there was one outing that I remember it happened 7 times. When I returned home I went back out I ‘found’ another.
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I was fortunate enough to go on an African safari one year, and while canoeing we’d see an occasional crocodile. Then we’d spot another, and, no! It was one of many that our guides called ‘logadiles’! Those floating partially submerged logs fooled us many times.
I also once spent quite a long time stalking what I thought were ducklings in a small pond. They were difficult to see due to the way shadows were hitting them, but they were splashing around and looking like they were having a good time. I got closer and closer, and finally…discovered they were bubbles from an aerator.
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Oooooh that reminded me of something that happened some months ago!!! I was in a lagoon with some family members and one of them said: “look, a crocodile, It’s coming towards us!”, but it was just a waterlily and bubbles.
Today I saw something green and brown on a palm leaf. Very excited thought it was a chrysalis. Up close I only realized it was a fallen leaf.
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Ask a Northern U.S. birder their Snowy Owl to trash bag ratio. If it isn’t greater than 50:1 in favor of the bag they are lying. 
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BTW I just remembered of seeing many years ago a swallow chasing a piece of plastic bag thinking it’s a butterfly. I wasn’t the tricked one but at least it’s related.
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When I am looking for turtles on the road, I have thought many many things were a turtle: car parts, banana peels, cup lids, cups, rocks - well, the list is long. When you are looking for a turtle everything looks like a turtle. I have many photos of leaves I thought were butterflies, and a few of butterflies I thought were leaves. I stalked an unusual “hawk” that turned out to be a Robin. It wasn’t even an unusual Robin. I would guess that every regular user on iNat has had this experience at least once.
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And now it’s mid-August and in my area of west central Michigan the bracken is turning brown. It’s the beginning of “ magic bracken” season when deer can magically appear and disappear in the same colored fronds… yup, got caught this morning. Brown pine boughs also look like deer.
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Everyday when I go birdwatching in my backyard there is this peice of wood high up in the trees that I always look at because I think it is a bird, I am thinking about cutting it down somehow.
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Funnily enough, this comment is directly relevant to two other current threads: the one about Ivory-billed Woodpeckers, and the one about Mokele-Mbembe.
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yes im regularly tricked by alogators
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Not man-made objects, but mushrooms that turn out to be yellow leaves can trick a lot of mushroom observers at this time of year.
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