The picture you should have had

[GWashington1732]

I was out today looking for birds, I didn't see much interesting, a couple of ducks, some geese, a couple of shorebirds, nothing new and exciting. As I was on my way back in I saw a log that had some geese and ducks around it so I figured I'd get a few. I started snapping, and I was so intently focused on snapping pictures of these mallards that I just barely noticed a huge splash about 30-40 feet away. Of course it only took me a second to realize that I had just missed the osprey I saw last week going into a nose dive right into the water. My realization was confirmed when a few seconds later, the osprey came out of the water. I almost cried, I was so upset with myself for missing that. Fortunately, he didn't catch anything so I got a chance to get some video of it hovering, and later I saw it catch a fish but I wasn't close and you can't see the bird in the picture I got of the second dive.

Anyone else ever had that happen before, where you were just taken off guard by the perfect National Geographic quality shot and you didn't get it? It's really is a horrible feeling.

[Gevonovich]

Just the other day I was walking along a creek bed taking pictures of the scenery when out of my peripheral vision I saw something move. I had one of those feelings, that I was in danger. I was standing on a large boulder so that I could get a shot down the stream. As I tuned to look ...there a few feet away was the largest snake I had ever seen in the wild. It was a 12 ft snake, big around as my leg. My first thought was ..oh #@%& and a big adrenaline rush. Then, I noticed it begin to slowly move away. I watched in disbelief as this GIANT snake moved off the boulder below me and onto the shoreline and straight up between a tree next to a giant boulder with a bunch of flood debris. I did get a shot at that point but it was at a good distance and I was up on the boulder and did not want to risk falling to try and get closer, quickly.
Here is the picture of this magnificent specimen. Its a Rat Snake I believe, But one problem, they only get to around 6 ft, supposedly. You can see, if you zoom in, this guy is as big around as those trees and its head is already on top on the big boulder, with the rest of is body still on the ground!!

I've since been back but could not locate him. Don't want him to locate me first ...lol

[jstrykr74]

Few years ago, I was doing to some contract work at a switch house at a power plant on Long Island Sound. Every morning I would have to just about push the deer and turkeys out of the way on the access road. You just about hand feed them and they would bed down under the a tree 20 feet from where I was working. The osprey would take fish from the cove all day long. But seeings this was post 9/11, no cameras were allowed and yes my truck was searched on the way in and out every day. It would have been too easy to get some incredible shots.

[snow job]

When I lived in CA, my wife told me she saw a deer touch noses with one of our cats. I can only imagine what that looked like.
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