These are GREAT! I love discovering your secret finds
I totally failed to see the Magnificient Monkeyflower, Erythranthe grandis, round leaves and red stems, in this photo of the sedge Isolepis cernua. Also in other photos of this sedge species and of Seaside Plantain (Plantago maritima). My focus is obviously good, but seeing things I didn’t expect? Not so much.
How did you find that?
Can y’all spot the sneaky tick in this pic of a Deptford pink? I definitely didn’t notice until another user pointed it out.
This is great! I had a conversation a few weeks ago with a couple of friends about how I always seem to find ticks on me, but never seem to ever see any “in the wild” on plants. I’m curious to see how many tick observations on here are on plants versus one that someone found on their pants back at home or something.
I almost never see ticks except on my or my dog. One day, though, I was about to walk into some grass when my colleague warned me it was full of ticks. Ick! A tick on about every other grass stem in that patch and other nearby patches. Totally gross.
Bump to keep this from closing.
I’ve really enjoyed the posts thus far!
This small native bushviolet hiding behind Sigesbeckia flosculosa:
This bug in Heliotropium angiospermum
And not part of the original focus (was a landscape photo) but I managed to spot among the bushes what I think is the very rare Barnadesia hutchinsoniana:
Genus Lestes. I’m going by the spread wings.
Yes.
What’s strange (and a bit embarrassing) is, I was at that pond looking for spreadwings, and I missed this one.
Regarding the “Plant blindness” - I used to almost always make observations of the identifiable plants in my animal photos, but I stopped doing this because even if I put in the description I was interested in the plant, people would always identify it as the animal. Because of this, I don’t make observation like this much anymore.
I didn’t notice the Virginia Rail in this observation until over 2 years afterwards. At the time I took this photo I’d never (known I’d) seen a Virginia Rail, but I’ve seen them since I originally took the photo: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/98319524
By the ways, here’s a project to add observations like these to: https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/ignore-the-elephant-seal
(we use we/us pronouns) We find that audio observations are ideal for finding additional species. We were recording a Barred Owl call recently and believe we may have also inadvertently recorded a Southern Flying Squirrel.
Not my observation:
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/64670213
I like the hoverfly on the snake’s head.
You know you are an insect guy when … you have to read the word ‘snake’ before spotting it in the image above. 
