What are Your Most Frustrating INatting Moments?

[Ec0pete]

Ha ha! My most frustrating moments come at times when I reminisce on the things I saw but did not photograph because it was before I had heard of iNaturalist. (I guess before it existed as well).

[danly]

The delightful thing about this thread is that, despite being about frustrating moments in nature, it is quite full of captivating little stories of encounters with fascinating creatures: a burrowing owl, an ocelot in a tree, a kiwi crossing the path and an anteater crossing the road… none of which I am ever likely to see. I am sure you will all remember these moments, even without the documenting photos and RG observations.

[sethshively]

Probably the 3 separate occasions this year when I have seen the extremely rare Coppery Emerald dragonfly, flying just out of reach of my net. At least one of those times I managed to see one perch high in a tree, and got a barely-identifiable photo.

[jasonhernandez74]

Well. Looks like the majority has spoken. Still, going through the thread again, I found a few moments that I can agree would be the most frustrating.

@yayemaster

Having the coordinates of a rare plant and not finding it at the coordinates

@ursaw

Where I remembered the road giving away to the endless steppes and expected to find a biodiversity galore – was a sea of trash, and then a sea of brown. Empty tilled earth. A lonely invasive buffalo bur growing at its edge. I trailed the thin line of plant growth separating two giant empty fields all the way to the cliffs, and the only non-plant life I found still living there was a little colony of harvester ants.

@ursaw

Looks like someone threw their cig butt into the dry grass again, so now there’s a long strip of black ashes instead.

@ursaw

The map showed a giant pond and those always harbor plenty of cool critters!

It’s gone. There’s a tiny overgrown puddle crowded with mosquitoes and flies, but the place that used to be a giant body of water on the map is an empty football field now.

@mkanimallover

Recently, I was driving by, and I looked in the direction of the cicada-tree, hoping to see it.
It was gone.

@peterschiphof

Suddenly out of nowhere two dogs appeared (probably from a nearby ranch) and spooked the Giant anteater, it rushed in the thicket beside the road.

Yes, I, too, have experienced the frustration of a persnickety camera and/or a flighty organism. But as frustrating as those moments are, I strongly disagree that they are the most frustrating. Going back years later to a place that I used to call “Fern Gully,” only to find it transformed to brush and tree stumps – now that’s frustrating. That’s way more frustrating than not having a memory card in the camera.

[petezani]

I had a field site fracked by Halliburton from one visit to the next. That was frustrating. Another I had burn the weekend before I scouted it so that when I arrived it was just a smoldering black moonscape being picked clean by a roadrunner.

[mkanimallover]

@jasonhernandez74

But as frustrating as those moments are, I strongly disagree that they are the most frustrating.

Different people have different experiences and opinions.

@jasonhernandez74

But as frustrating as those moments are, I strongly disagree that they are the most frustrating. Going back years later to a place that I used to call “Fern Gully,” only to find it transformed to brush and tree stumps

That sounds horrible!

[aaravmishra]

@jasonhernandez74

Going back years later to a place that I used to call “Fern Gully,” only to find it transformed to brush and tree stumps – now that’s frustrating.

Well every time the maintenance gets the grass cut I feel so annoyed. Sometime while searching lights for bug people tell me that I can get electrocuted even if I am totally aware and cautious, that is a thing that I hate the most, perhaps.

[ericakeklak]

I take a walk in a new part of the city I’ve never been before, and I find an empty lot that doesn’t have a no trespassing sign or any obvious security that would imply I’m not welcome. I take a few photos of every species I see, and all the while it’s “invasive, introduced, invasive, invasive, introduced…” I go home, upload the observations, and weep.

[jasonhernandez74]

@ericakeklak

all the while it’s “invasive, introduced, invasive, invasive, introduced…” I go home, upload the observations, and weep.

You wouldn’t like Hawaii. This describes most woodland trails and seemingly “natural” areas there.

[kairune]

I got stuck in quicksand up to my thighs while looking for low-tide critters. Got a photograph of a big barnacle while I was at it, though I had to go home with one shoe.

[oksanaetal]

A MACHETE is the answer!

[ericakeklak]

I would love to have one, but my university bans the possession of weapons on campus, and I dorm. The university also keeps replacing the bedding plants every single month, which is annoying for me because it’s probably disrupting the native pollinator ecosystem (barely here to begin with) and preventing me from getting any good pictures of pollinators that need time to establish themselves. It’s not the most frustrating iNat moment, but I thought I’d add this one too.

[jnstuart]

I’ve had some of my best nature encounters while sinking into deep mud or nearly drowning in a flowing river. Sometimes the good comes with the bad.

[oksanaetal]

Makes sense. Do they classify shovels as weapons? They can be almost as good in some circumstances.

[t_0x16c]

Would it be possible to buy the thing, use it and then return it immediately after?

[jnstuart]

You definitely have to work to find anything native in Hawaii. Until you put on your snorkeling gear and have an underwater camera and then almost everything you see is native.

[mkanimallover]

Um where are we trying to go with this?

[petezani]

Fun story. Back when I was a grad student we were in the final packing stages for one of our multi-month field trips to the Amazon. We realized we’d forgotten to pack one of the machetes, which was over in the other building where I was working. So I thought nothing of it when I put the machete in my backpack and walked it across campus sticking out the top. The campus security officer felt differently and I think his exact quote was “Sir, put down the knife.” I was outside the building I needed to be in so we had to go in and sort it out with my advisor.

[madoka_mapper]

Taking photos of insects with phone has proven to be quite frustrating. Also, birds.. I wish my zoom could cooperate with me but it doesn’t >-<

[mkanimallover]

Yep, I was so glad when I got my own camera and didn’t have to keep begging my mom for her phone anymore

Welcome to the community!!