So, I went for a walk in the woods a few days ago, expecting a peaceful, chill experience. You know, just me, the trees, a little bird song in the background. But no. Nature had other plans.
I started off on a nice, calm trail and was feeling pretty good about the whole “outdoorsy” vibe. Then, I hit the first obstacle: mud. Not just any mud, but that sticky, cling-to-your-boots kind of mud that makes you second guess every life decision that led you to this point. I swear I lost half my shoes in it.
Then, of course, came the slow walkers. You know the type—people who stop every 30 seconds to take a photo of a leaf or try to figure out if the bird they just spotted is a sparrow or a finch. Meanwhile, I’m standing there, doing the awkward “I’m just waiting, but not trying to make it obvious” shuffle. Of course, the universe made sure I had a front-row seat to this… for 15 minutes.
Finally, when I thought I was safe and clear, I reached a quiet, reflective spot by the stream… and immediately got attacked by a swarm of mosquitoes. After swatting at thin air for what felt like hours, I gave up and decided to call it a day.
So, yeah. Nature is beautiful, but I’m starting to think it’s also trying to teach me patience… in the hardest way possible. Anyone else ever feel like nature is setting you up for life lessons, one mosquito bite at a time?
Josiah
(Still trying to scrub off the mud and mosquito bites)
One of my favourite insect taxon, and one I always aim to get a photo, is cuckoo wasps. In my parents’ garden there is a wooden pole that they just absolutely love.
For the first month of seeing them there I could not get a single photo. I’d see them crawling around on there from afar, but as soon as I got within 2m, they were gone and usually I am quite good with getting close to insects. I was about to give up on that taxon once and for all, but then it happened and I got these photos: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/206949826
(perhaps the observation didn’t need that many, but after a month, I wasn’t going to just discard a few)
I find that it depends on my mood and the energy I’m broadcasting.
In a good calm mood I do very well. Birds and beasts, bugs galore.
In not as great moods I repel all but the in-my-face gnats and mosquitos that attack where I can’t reach. I can hear no birds, and the little creatures scatter before I get ‘there’.
+1 it’s almost always wasps for me. I’ve virtually given up on Pompilidae and some others, unless I can find them carrying a host or by the burrow! Even then, waiting to ‘ambush’ them is not without it tribulation, checking the metadata on one recent Sphecid subject, it looks like it took 40 minutes between burrow visits… Not that I noticed.
Sceliphron are much more rewarding, they’re happy for you to take photos while they’re merrily buzzing away collecting mud : )
And it was worth waiting, you got a lovely photo!
I remember photographing this fritillary. I just couldn’t photograph it from my viewpoint on the ground. I thought about throwing a stick to startle it (it was perched on a tree or something), but then thought that would be really unkind. As if in response, the butterfly flew down, and I got some great photos!
Nature photography has definitely taught me patience. You’re fighting against the environment and uncooperative organisms while trying to get that perfect shot, which you almost never get anyway. I find I’ve become much more patient since I started this hobby.
After many years spent working in an extremely emotionally taxing line of work, now done, my time in my garden is largely a balm, restorative.
But often I find that if I go into my garden when I am trying to process something difficult and am (rightfully) a smidge agitated from doing so, I see nothing flying – not one bee, beetle, fly, nothing. I grouse a bit but look where I know a caterpillar is or at plants which habitually have nymphs, etc., but even then the air refuses to settle and I cannot take a single photograph using my little phone.
I debate going back inside. Confession: sometimes I do.
But if instead I sit down on the little stone bench, if I just sit and watch the flocks of noisy zanates flying over (to the east as the sun comes up, to the west as the sun sets) or midday listen to orioles and mockingbirds as they squabble, I can feel my pulse calm and my breathing slow and then I begin to see small things that were there all along but hidden to the more agitated me.
You were absolutely right to try to find a quiet, reflective spot. Your only error was not wearing mosquito spray, perhaps. Here we put witch hazel on bites and it calms them immediately.
(You would think I would learn to always sit down on the bench, but I am told I can be stubborn, a lifelong tendency.)
Every place that has a winter likes to drag said winter out excessively long. Just when it seems like spring has come – nope, winter comes back to get the tender plants that were put outside too optimistically.
Now it’s winter and it’s cold so bugs died or are hibernating, vertebrates in general are smarter than me and run away before I can get close so right now I’m basically stuck with photographing flora which doesn’t get as many IDs
Erm, yeah, that would be me… When photographing plants on a windy day, the best picture is always the 30th-50th. And if you could just stand over there and try to strategically block the wind, maybe it’s only going to take about 20 or so.
Normally, I would say something like “I photograph dragonflies, so Nature is either testing my patience or trying to teach me better patience every time I pull out the camera.” But this past summer brought an observation that was supposed to be a mating pair of Tule Bluets, until it got photobombed.
Lol, I’ve had those moments. For example, I’ll spend TWO HOURS standing on my balcony like a statue waiting for a bird to pass by. Then, when I get tired and go down for lunch, the birds comes, chirps their little song, and flies away by the time I get back to the balcony. IT IS PAIN… if I would have stood a bit longer, I would have see it. But hey, at least my five second attention span has increased a bit thanks to this! Also, don’t kill me, but I’m definitely one of those people who ‘stop every 30 seconds to take a photo of a leaf or try to figure out if the bird they just spotted is a sparrow or a finch’.
Edit: I’ve experienced mud too. On a recent trip in kannur, kerala, the group I was in was patiently waiting for one final person to arrive. I saw him in the distance, and he was quite obviously lost. I decided to head over. But the moment I leave the path, my entire foot falls into the floor. This is sticky, thick, moist mud. I panic, loose my footing, ruin my shoes, and barely manage to escape. Meanwhile, I stumble forward, into a more marshy mud. The worst part is that it was all covered in a fine layer of grass, so I had no idea where was mud and were was a stable foothold. Eventually, I clamber back to the group looking like a mud monster. Haven’t forgotten it to this day (because it happened less than a month ago).
When photographing plants on a windy day, the best picture is always the 30th-50th. And if you could just stand over there and try to strategically block the wind, maybe it’s only going to take about 20 or so.