Worst Inaturalist Experiences Ever

I looked over a few of your observations to see if anything looked familiar. I’ve never been to Colorado so I might as well take a virtual trip. :slightly_smiling_face:

4 Likes

Oh, that reminds me! I rescued a bee from a pool last week. I couldn’t tell if it was a western honey bee or something else (it was so wet it looked all black) so I was waiting for it to dry out. I kept checking on its progress frequently as it fluttered its wings to dry off.

Then it’s gone and I spot my mom’s dog (who snaps at paper wasps, and had passed by a few seconds earlier) a bit farther away, smacking/chewing something.

Now, he could have been eating grass, but I’m pretty sure the furry jerk ate my rescue bee.

14 Likes

Lol! That sucks! Both of my dogs do the same thing. I have to keep my rescues out of reach. And I love those bees. They never sting me. (When I’m rescuing that is.)

4 Likes

Worst inat experiences are mostly with humans. Here I am getting to have a nice shot of a bird or animal and there comes a human or a car passes and my object is gone. Or I am getting to record a bird or other animal and there come screeching kids and stay there! I do not even count weird looks (thankfully, most of my countrymen are too reserved to come up and ask what I am doing and my neighbours know that I am biologist, so are not surprised by my behaviour). But yesterday it was a bit too much: I found a new locality of a spreading weed Portulaca oleracea and bent down to make a photo (it was growing at the edge of a pavement). And suddenly there is a yorkie in my camera view checking what it is that I am doing. When I turned, there was a big formidable lady tied to the yorkie by a lead, who was eyeing me very suspiciously but was too busy talking on the phone to start serious interrogation. I did not wait until she was finished.

15 Likes

My sympathy. You still manage to get quite a few observations which I enjoy seeing. Have a great weekend!

2 Likes

Oh, yes , humans!

Like when you’re trying to inconspicuously photograph some basking turtles that you know from past experience are very shy. You’re on the top of some falls, crouched low so they won’t see you, and being very quiet, and some stranger stands up next to you (so several see him and drop off) and then starts talking loudly to you (there go some more) and then despite your monosyllabic answers, clipped tone, and “go away” body language, continues to do so until they are all gone (bye, bye turtles) .

Though in retrospect it was an ambassador opportunity, especially as I see turtles basking there all the time, but at the time I was just really, really annoyed.

11 Likes

Thank you. I hope you will have a great weekend too. I am only praying that torrental rain won’t spoil my outing - we are having lots of that this year.

3 Likes

That is a story which reminds me one, told by a guide at Mkhuze Reserve (South Africa). There are several hide outs by the water holes where the visitors can observe animals coming to drink. He told us to aproach the hide out in silence and keep very quiet when in it. And told how several people settled quietly to wait for the animals which have just started to appear and suddenly there comes in a jovial guy with big army style hiking boots, treads heavily and noisily over the boarded passage and shouts (very happily and politely) in full thunderous voice ‘Hullo, guys, how are you?’.

11 Likes

I hope not! I’d say this year has had much more violent weather than usual. Back in April we had a tornado hit our neighborhood—a few buildings were damaged, but no injuries—thank God! A tornado is somewhat unusual for the piedmont region of South Carolina.

3 Likes



Honestly this wasn’t the worst. It was more funny than anything. I was sitting outside taking photos of a squirrel scurrying around where I was sitting.
Before he left, he/she climbed onto the coffee table I was sitting at, looked me in the eye, took a dump, and left.
If that’s not a power move I don’t know what is.

19 Likes

I dunno… First rule of the Internet - pics or didn’t happen :wink:

8 Likes

I usually travel quite a bit for work but all travel has been banned since March so I’m botanizing vicariously through iNatters who still get to go outside.

4 Likes

but the interaction between us and nature - that happened. The pic is secondary. You may put an obs on iNat with no pic, no sound clip.

8 Likes

Oh of course. It was a tongue in cheek content :slightly_smiling_face:

4 Likes

My worst experience was when a megaobserver with 13K observations (with merely all of them fitting the project managed by me) deleted everything from iNaturalist without any explanations.

So, now we are making csv-backup of the metadata.

13 Likes

That sucks for your project, but it’s any user’s perogative to remove their data from iNat at any time, and no one is owed an explanation.
I can see where it can be considered both a good thing and a bad thing that each of us gets to retain complete and absolute ownership of our own data even after uploading it to iNaturalist.

5 Likes

It’s territorial.:grinning: The same reason a black bear always takes a dump right in the middle of a trail.

4 Likes

@mertensia That’s horrible!

4 Likes

Very true…

1 Like

Not a bad experience, but a bit funny. Last year i was in Greece, the island of Lesbos, wanting to take some photos of the flamingo population https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/31339445

The saltpans where they forage were surrounded by a small trench which i thought was dry. I sneaked closer with my camera in hand and i felt my foot starting to dissapear in the mud. Almost immediately my leg went down in the mud until my knee. Not wanting to go face and camera down in the mud i let myself fall backwards and started laughing at the situation lying there helpless. I heard my wife asking behind me “what are you doing?” i said “i am admiring the sky” and she replied “i thought you were going to watch the flamingos”

34 Likes