Getting attacked

[swmcl]

Mornin' !

I have been outproving my new-found knowledge recently and have been trying to do a series on 'Bark' in my local neighbourhood.

One of the trees turned out to have a hive about 6 ft from the camera position. I got a bee sting to the ear whilst under the darkcloth.

Another tree must've had a bird's nest nearby because I got swooped by a crazy bird.

Sheesh ! Talk about upsetting my rhythm !

What other stories can be told ?

Given this, I might not head north to the crocodiles ...

[ImSoNegative]

I had a run in with a black bear one time while up in the mountains, he stood up on hind legs and everything, I didn't move and he didn't either we just kind of looked at each other I did have my 45 with me but thank goodness I didn't have to use it, after what seemed like forever he went back down on all fours and went up into the woods, later I found out that young male bears are like that, they feel thay have something to prove, a couple of years before that a woman her baby and little girl was attacked not far from where I was on the trail, the little girl took off running and the bear chased her and killed her, the forest service quickly got the bear and put him down. Now there are signs posted everywhere about "If you see a bear......"

[Drew Wiley]

Bees. My Grandmother had a sizable plot of old growth rainforest on the Oregon Coast, where the wild honeybees could form swarms so big they would block the sun out, like a big dark cloud overhead. One swarm totally honeycombed a row of wild blackberries about twenty feet long in only two days - that was a huge hive! So we kids would walk down there and look at it. Then my brat cousin picked up a rock and flung it into that hive. A monstrous dark cloud of bees rose up. We were doomed. But a few yards away there was a pond the opposite direction, which had a mink in it, but also cattails along the shore. So we quickly broke off little section of cattail reed to use as breathing tubes while we swam underwater across the pond. Later that summer I fell into a hive of yellowjackets crossing a rottenlog. But twenty of so stings on the face are one thing. Twenty thousand would have been a different situation!

[bigdog]

Fire ants!

[Drew Wiley]

Gosh. I had a bad case of shingles this past Spring. That's like wearing fire ants. I eventually got stir crazy and had to get out, so padded the heck out of my big
8x10 pack and walked slowwwww. No "doing the twist" movements! Got one nice shot and about a mile back and forth walk on a relatively level trail. But them
dern fire ants were bitin' me the whole time.

[Jac@stafford.net]

Asian Lady beetles! Those are the ones that bite. Last year I stepped into a field and once set up I was swarmed! Very unpleasant, and when I got back into the truck there were some inside the camera bag. I'd rather encounter black bears. Seriously, our black bears are less threatening here than farm dogs.

[ImSoNegative]

damn cool stories

[ImSoNegative]

most of the bears here are non threatening as well, BUT on up in the smokeys when they have problem bears they bring them here and turn them loose. the problem bears are the ones that are in the parks and people feed them and they become a nuisance, if that bear that I met would have charged at me like thought he was going to do his ass would have been a throw rug, he kept looking at me, I would glance at him and then kind of turn my head trying not to make eye contact to much, he eventually went away

[Jac@stafford.net]

[...] if that bear that I met would have charged at me like thought he was going to do his ass would have been a throw rug

Another guy who photographs with a 458 Magnum? :)

[Drew Wiley]

Biting ladybugs? Never heard of that one. I have walked into the woods where our spotted Calif ladybugs winter swarm up to several inches deep, sometimes a
hundred or so yards long, over and under autumn foliage. Took an 8x10 closeup of that swarm once, but obviously had to be darn careful where I placed my feet
or tripod. A single misstep would crush a couple hundred of them. The size and numbers of that particular winter swarm has conspicuously diminished in recent
years, as most such gathering or purported to be. The entomologists are blaming widespread pesticide use as well as more and more natural foliage being cleared for monoculture crops. But since aphids etc are getting resistant to the pesticides, there's quite a trend is minimizing their use and bringing in mass-raised spotted ladybugs themselves. They're beetles of course, but the term ladybug is the colloquial convention.

[Jac@stafford.net]

Biting ladybugs? Never heard of that one.

They are Asian lady beetles, not your lady bug.

[bobwysiwyg]

Asian Lady beetles! Those are the ones that bite. Last year I stepped into a field and once set up I was swarmed! Very unpleasant, and when I got back into the truck there were some inside the camera bag. I'd rather encounter black bears. Seriously, our black bears are less threatening here than farm dogs.

Ditto, a pox on whomever brought them here! It's getting colder now and they will invade any structure they can in an attempt to stay warm.

[Drew Wiley]

Ha Jack. They're even parenthetically termed "ladybugs" on official Ag sites. No farmer I've know ever called them "lady beetles". Nor any professional entomologist, and I've known more than my fair share of them too. In fact, if these thing bite, I doubt anyone will use the term "lady" much longer either! Or maybe that just depends on one's personal experience with ladies in general. Except for more white on the thorax (yes, I do have a field biology degree), they outwardly resemble our most common lady/non-lady beetle/bugs (Coleoptera, not Hemiptera, if you must be nitpicky!), but I've never seen our various cute species out here invade houses or bite anything other than smaller insects they consider food. Has someone been watching too many "B" horror movies like "The
Fly"? Sure hope those things don't migrate west.

[j.e.simmons]

I was standing in a Florida swamp, camera pointed at the subject, waiting for the sun to move and give me axis lighting, feet slowly sinking into the bog. I heard something walking through the brush, then saw a hairy back. When the animal came into a clearing, I saw it was a wild hog - tusks gleaming. I had my darkcloth over my shoulders, so I crouched down, then jumped up and threw the darkcloth upwards. I must have looked like a 10-foot tall Sasquatch, because the pig took off bounding through the swamp.

[TrentM]

I can attest, ladybugs do indeed bite! It's not like a bee sting, but it still is not pleasant. More like a pinch.

[Drew Wiley]

Gosh, what unladylike behavior! None has ever bitten me; maybe ladies like me. But I take pigs more seriously. I once set up a closeup shot of a magnificent huge
manzanita trunk with peeling bark when I started hearing grunts. I looked out from under the corner of the darkcloth and found myself surrounded by about thirty pigs, including four full-grown wild boars, tusks n' all. They apparently couldn't figure out what I was, with three wooden legs and two denim ones. So they were grunting back and forth at one another with apparently curious intonation. I VERY carefully pulled the darkcloth and tripped the shutter, put the holder back in, all while keeping the other hand on a tree branch, so I could climb fast if necessary. Then their grunt tone started changing and I knew I needed to act. So I just started whooping real loud. This totally confused their military communication. So they started to panic and run around me fast in a big circle, then suddenly all ran off downhill in the same direction. The shot and resulting Ciba print came out great. Ever better, I wasn't gored and eaten by pigs.

[Jac@stafford.net]

Ha Jack. They're even parenthetically termed "ladybugs" on official Ag sites. [...] I've never seen our various cute species out here invade houses or bite anything other than smaller insects they consider food.

We must be talking about different species. Come to SE Minnesota some spring and live the experience, or if you taste bad, witness other people being bitten. Or visit in late October and see them invade buildings.

[TrentM]

That's a wild story, Drew. Love it! Yea, Florida razorbacks are not to be reckoned with...

[TrentM]

The bugs I'm talking about are the cute little orange beetles with the black dots. I was working on a video production and opened a bag of thousands of them in a garden. The little buggers crawled up my arms, by the hundreds. I was covered with them...and then they started to bite. Ouch! I flung my arms around to make them fly away. The camera crew got a good laugh, but remember, they are carnivores!

[Drew Wiley]

They are carnivores indeed; but the dozen of so species around here can't bit hard enough to pinch the skin. Not all are dotted; the most abundant species is, the
same as farmers are now deliberately releasing into organic fields. But if the lil' critters you are describing are really all that bad, we can end this whole "lady beetle" versus "ladybug" nomenclature debate by simply renaming them "bitch insects".

[Jerry Bodine]

In 1958 my parents came to visit me in L.A. while on their vacation and I gave them the west coast tour of beauty - L.A. to Vancouver BC to L.A. On the return trip south we passed through Yosemite, where I spotted a half-grown black (species?) bear milling around a campground area and wanted to get a pic as close as I could (no interchangeable lenses for my old Minolta A). Take a snap, move closer, take another,move closer, take another. Just then a hotrod came razzing through the area backfiring. The bear's eyes got big as silver dollars and he started to run. I was in his escape route and he came straight at me. Everything I did at that point was instinctive as he skidded up to me on all fours. I held my ground while he grabbed the back of my knee in his mouth and I let that leg swing freely. Then he let go and ran off in another direction without breaking my skin or poking holes in my pants - just four fang bruises. Poor thing was in panic mode. Started shaking at that point when a guy stepped out from behind a large nearby tree after witnessing it all and said "Geez, you got guts!" to which I replied "Maybe so, but they're little ones." Parents had stayed in the car and had not seen the incident. Mom said if she'd seen it she might have had a heart attack. Glad she didn't see.

[Drew Wiley]

I've never had a bear incident in the back country. But back in the bad ole days, when I was a little kid, when bears were deliberately fed garbage in Yosemite for the sake of tourists sitting in bleachers (just like a football game), there was one humorous incident. Not many people used tents car camping in good weatherback then, but just ropes between trees and blankets hung for privacy. We were camped up at Tenaya Lk with miserable army surplus sleeping bags. In the middle of the night, a black bear licked my sister on the face. She woke up screaming, and ran into the station wagon. The bear was even more terrified and ran right over me. At least the sleeping bag cushioned me some. And he just keep running, knocking over multiple trash cans en route, and probably trailing ropes around his body.

[Wayne]

Beetles in the family Coccinellidae are called ladybugs, lady beetles, or ladybird beetles depending on your location. Plenty of entomologists use these terms too including myself. Asian lady beetles (Harmonia axyridis) do indeed bite, and they invade houses during fall migrations at least in the Great Lakes Region and cold parts of the country, but not so much in California. Other lady beetles can bite too, but Asians are large enough to sting a tiny bit. No big deal, but not very lady-like.

True "spotted ladybugs" (Coleomegilla maculata ssp.) are or were, historically, restricted to extreme southern California but since common names are pretty useless and vary from place to place you might be referring to convergent lady beetles, Hippodamia convergens, which are famous for their massive annual migrations to and from the western mountains. These have, unfortunately (and still are, unfortunately) bred and released by the tens of thousands if not millions every year, but this is promoted only by that special breed of entomologist know as meddling agricultural nuisances. The native populations of convergent lady beetles have declined considerably in parts of the Midwest and Canada, and this decline coincides with the explosion of adventive species like the Asian lady beetle and several others. Perhaps something similar is happening in California.

[ImSoNegative]

I've never had a bear incident in the back country. But back in the bad ole days, when I was a little kid, when bears were deliberately fed garbage in Yosemite for the sake of tourists sitting in bleachers (just like a football game), there was one humorous incident. Not many people used tents car camping in good weatherback then, but just ropes between trees and blankets hung for privacy. We were camped up at Tenaya Lk with miserable army surplus sleeping bags. In the middle of the night, a black bear licked my sister on the face. She woke up screaming, and ran into the station wagon. The bear was even more terrified and ran right over me. At least the sleeping bag cushioned me some. And he just keep running, knocking over multiple trash cans en route, and probably trailing ropes around his body.

Now that is hilarious haha

[John Olsen]

Attack donkey! I got permission from the landowner, but her donkey didn't agree. He kept bumping me as I set up the tripod. Eventually, shouting and pushing his nose away got him to leave me alone. The farmer was probably laughing like crazy. It's a good thing this was before YouTube so I couldn't be globally humiliated.

[JMO]

Old School Wayne, Thanks for the clarifications re Coccinellids. As another entomologist (MS & PhD Purdue Univ) who has more recently been bitten by the Large Format camera bug (no Latin name that I can recommend) it is good to know that another entomologist is on-post here. I am in SE Wisconsin, where the weather recently is coming around to being favorable for the annual swarms of Asian Ladybird Beetles seeking overwintering places on the south and southwest sides of area homes (especially during warm and sunny afternoons). Regards....



Beetles in the family Coccinellidae are called ladybugs, lady beetles, or ladybird beetles depending on your location. Plenty of entomologists use these terms too including myself. Asian lady beetles (Harmonia axyridis) do indeed bite, and they invade houses during fall migrations at least in the Great Lakes Region and cold parts of the country, but not so much in California. Other lady beetles can bite too, but Asians are large enough to sting a tiny bit. No big deal, but not very lady-like.

True "spotted ladybugs" (Coleomegilla maculata ssp.) are or were, historically, restricted to extreme southern California but since common names are pretty useless and vary from place to place you might be referring to convergent lady beetles, Hippodamia convergens, which are famous for their massive annual migrations to and from the western mountains. These have, unfortunately (and still are, unfortunately) bred and released by the tens of thousands if not millions every year, but this is promoted only by that special breed of entomologist know as meddling agricultural nuisances. The native populations of convergent lady beetles have declined considerably in parts of the Midwest and Canada, and this decline coincides with the explosion of adventive species like the Asian lady beetle and several others. Perhaps something similar is happening in California.

[Jody_S]

Horse flies and deer flies. No laughing matter, in the Canadian arctic. They can kill a full-grown caribou. You need to stay in the open in the wind, and if there's no wind, in your tent with a plentiful supply of deet. I was in polar bear country, fortunately I didn't encounter any... (obviously, as I'm still here to type this). But it took several weeks for the scars from the flies to heal. I had huge welts around my neck and wrists, the only places I had exposed skin while walking through the woods a couple of times.

I was once offered a job guarding a mine in the Quebec far north from polar bears. When I asked why the position was vacant (where was the last guard?), I was told they hadn't found him yet. Much as I love the arctic, I regretfully turned down the job.

[John Kasaian]

Wasps. Actually got attacked at Shadow of The Giants Nature Trail in Nelder Grove where California Ladybugs annually gather en mass just like Drew Wiley explained.

[Bob Sawin]

I was camping along Banks Lake and woke up one morning surrounded by a large flock of wild turkeys. It was entertaining to watch them.

[swmcl]

I love that donkey story ...

[Corran]

Nothing worse than getting swarmed by yellow flies.

[HMG]

A tick. One stinkin' little tick. But carrying erlichiosis.

[steveo]

Midges, billions of the little buggers. You kill one and a hundred thousand attend its funeral!


Many a good holiday, photograph, walk, cycle trip ruined by midges.

[Andrew O'Neill]

Horseflies in Saskatchewan. Midges in Scotland.

[Jim Jones]

Attack donkey! I got permission from the landowner, but her donkey didn't agree. He kept bumping me as I set up the tripod. Eventually, shouting and pushing his nose away got him to leave me alone. The farmer was probably laughing like crazy. It's a good thing this was before YouTube so I couldn't be globally humiliated.

Photographers can be plagued by jackasses wherever they go.

[Kirk Gittings]

Lets not forget that photographers can be jackasses too.

[ShannonG]

Wasps wile under my dark cloth standing on a train car,so i couldn't move to get away from them,didnt get stung tho.

[Bob Sawin]

Kirk...say it ain't so. LOL

[Drew Wiley]

Wasps being attracted to darkcloths, no big deal. Landing on your nose as you're precariously hanging to a crumbly piece of rock on the side of a cliff with two fingers, with a heavy pack full of LF gear on your back at the same time, now that's memorable! One learns to twitch their nose side to side VERY carefully.

[JMO]

The best protection from ticks, and also some of the biting flies that aren't repelled well by DEET (which is pretty good against most mosquitoes), is to spray some permethrin insecticide on your outdoor clothing. There are some tick repellent aerosol products (e.g., Permanone) that contain permethrin insecticide as the active ingredient, but there are also many area repellent products (e.g., Yard Guard and similar) that also contain permethrin or other synthetic pyrethroid insecticides. These are water-based formulations that won't damage your clothing if you spray it on pant legs, vests, hats, etc. Such sprays shouldn't be applied directly to skin, but can really help against some of these other arthropod tormentors. One bonus is that, when applied to clothing, you needn't reapply every time you go out, as the permethrin will last up to a couple of weeks even through multiple uses of the clothing items (unless they might become soaked or excessively soiled). As isolated individuals, most wasps would also be repelled by permethrin residues. However, swarms of yellow jackets or hornets or bees that are mass-attacking in defense of a nest that you (in your photography zeal) step on, or set up your tripod too close to, can not be effectively repelled by any insecticide or repellent product. Nothing will stop or dissuade such a defensive mass-attack, short of a sturdy, full-bodied bee suit. ...

[Jmarmck]

Hmmm, I have an abandoned golf course as an extension to my front yard. I wander out at night camera on tripod over my shoulder in my Birkenstocks to photograph lightning. Sometime I accidently setup right over a fire ant mound. I hate fire ants. I react to the bites with blisters two days later.

Set up at sunset one evening just as the sun was setting behind a thunderstorm. Looked down and a water moccasin was slithering toward me. I did not have anything resembling a square nosed shovel so I moved. First time for everything. This was the most recent of many run ins I have had with cotton mouths. This was the first one that got away.

While trying do some work on pond bathymetry, the crew (city slickers from Atlanta) got curious about the black 2 ft diameter squirming mass on a stump in a pond. They approached until they realized it was a black wasp nest. They were smart enough not to throw rocks at it. Though they were in the middle of a pond. They had to clear the brush from the dam of said pond and found a white hornets nest. I have found both in the small swampy area between the house and the river. I avoid them.

I have been here over 10 years now but have yet to see a gator despite my neighbor finding one in her yard last year.....as well as a nest of timber rattlers in her shed. I have heard stories about small annoying dogs and house cats going missing.

And then there was the 5 ft long timber rattler my dogs found in the tall grass of the golf course. I could hear the rattler from 30 ft away....it suffered a tragic death by square nosed shovel. I have the rattle. That snake is the reason I now mow that part of the golf course in front of my house.

This place has numerous critters that appear in my yard, alligator turtles, some rare terrapin, great horned owls, coyotes, wild hogs, deer, wild turkey, and one particular red tailed hawk that in the last year has decimated the mockingbird and blue jay population.

I try to photograph each and every critter I come across but some are more illusive than others.

[Milonian]

Some great stories here! I haven't read all of them so it might have been mentioned already but here in Scotland all the best mountains and lochs are on the west side of the country where it's cooler and wetter (Atlantic coast). You can't go 5 yards without attracting your own personalised swarm of biting midges. They did an experimental eradication once to include destroying the eggs that they lay in the ground. The whole ecology of the eradicated area fell to pieces - no spiders, no birds - nothing.
So we are stuck with them. They get on your lens too so some great photos get ruined - even TV cameras (are they LF?!) show them up and you can see the reporters are being bitten to h...!

[Ian Gordon Bilson]

Some great stories here! I haven't read all of them so it might have been mentioned already but here in Scotland all the best mountains and lochs are on the west side of the country where it's cooler and wetter (Atlantic coast). You can't go 5 yards without attracting your own personalised swarm of biting midges. They did an experimental eradication once to include destroying the eggs that they lay in the ground. The whole ecology of the eradicated area fell to pieces - no spiders, no birds - nothing.
So we are stuck with them. They get on your lens too so some great photos get ruined - even TV cameras (are they LF?!) show them up and you can see the reporters are being bitten to h...!

Then,I should mention the mighty West Coast Sandfly (West Coast of New Zealand's South Island).
Legend has it that hardy locals would drink a spoonful of Kerosine to repel the hordes.

[Milonian]

Then,I should mention the mighty West Coast Sandfly (West Coast of New Zealand's South Island).
Legend has it that hardy locals would drink a spoonful of Kerosine to repel the hordes.

The best midge repellant is supposed to be Avon Skin So Soft dry body oil! Smells (a bit) better than insecticides too they say.
Not sure if it works - never tried it. Probably not with NZ Sand Flies!

[Milonian]

Then,I should mention the mighty West Coast Sandfly (West Coast of New Zealand's South Island).
Legend has it that hardy locals would drink a spoonful of Kerosine to repel the hordes.
One or two coincidences Ian. Dunedin was I think the original name for Edinburgh which is where I'm from. Ian is my brother's name. My name is Gordon. A little town just 2 miles from where I live is called Bilston - with a "t"! Mining town.
Regards,
Gordon

[steveo]

Then,I should mention the mighty West Coast Sandfly (West Coast of New Zealand's South Island).
Legend has it that hardy locals would drink a spoonful of Kerosine to repel the hordes.

Oh yeah, I remember getting swarmed at Milford by those buggers!

[RandyB]

The best midge repellant is supposed to be Avon Skin So Soft dry body oil! Smells (a bit) better than insecticides too they say.
Not sure if it works - never tried it. Probably not with NZ Sand Flies!

Avon Skin So Soft works quite well here in the Southern USA until you start sweating. After about an hour I usually go inside, cool off and reapply more SOS. I have to be more careful nowadays since the West Nile virus is showing up in more and more places.

[barnacle]

Only been attacked by two species (apart from the two-legged type) - midges in Scotland and Aedes Aegypti mosquitoes in Brazil - which just happened to be carrying Dengue Fever and laid me out for three months...

Neil

[Robert Langham]

I carry an old pair of rubber boots that come in very handy. Snakebite proof if you step on something, fire ant resistant, Poison Ivy repellant, sticker and thorn proof, Tick and chigger barrier, et. Was very glad I had them at Mont St Michele while mucking around the base and crucial climbing through briars on the bay side. The underfoot can be distracting. Plus waterproof.

144097

[Kirk Gittings]

Pit Bulls................at the cemetery in Hernandez where AA shot Moonrise. They were quietly sneaking up on me while I was under the darkcloth. A historian who was with me but was on the other side of the church came around the corner and saw them and warned me not to move till I heard him yell then yell too and waive my darkcloth at them. Then he grabbed a big stick and ran at them shouting at the top of his lungs while I yelled and waived the dark cloth. THe dogs were so confused at that point that they took off running and we got the hell out of there too.

[Stephen Thomason]

You do know how to tell the difference between black bear scat and grizzly scat, don't you? Black bear scat has berries in it. Grizzly scat has little silver colored bells in it and smells like pepper spray.

[Drew Wiley]

How about getting dived at by owls or hawks? Great way to get holes in your bellows as well as your scalp!

[Richard Wasserman]

Swans! I was once charged by a mother swan protecting her young'uns. I swear she was 6 feet tall...

[Bob Salomon]

Had two garter snakes in the yards and one kept attacking my shoe while I was shooting. Then while shooting one of those little Florida lizards on my wife's hook it lunged and got my finger. But my brother got bitten by a monkey at the old Stamford Museum's zoo.

[Steve Smith]

The best midge repellant is supposed to be Avon Skin So Soft dry body oil!

When I was in Arran I was told that the best midge repellent was drinking the local beer. It was an experiment I was prepared to try.


Steve.

[Bob Salomon]

When I was in Arran I was told that the best midge repellent was drinking the local beer. It was an experiment I was prepared to try.


Steve.
Did it work or don't you remember?

[Steve Smith]

I didn't have a midge problem... But that didn't stop me trying the remedy!


Steve.

[David Lobato]

I was swarmed over by tourists in Canyonlands N.P. last year. As aggravating as a bug inside the bellows, one even managed to get in a photo. I didn't see him until it was too late. And the shot would have been lovely without his blurred image. Probably worse were a few kids leaping across my gear on the ground, no kidding. At least no one, not a one, asked questions about the 8x10 Deardorff.

[Vaughn]

The best midge repellant is supposed to be Avon Skin So Soft dry body oil! Smells (a bit) better than insecticides too they say.
Not sure if it works - never tried it. Probably not with NZ Sand Flies!

No it does not. Sand Flies -- nothing like a cloud of them circling the enterance of your backpacking tent, waiting for your bladder to force you out!

[Drew Wiley]

The midges probably just got inebriated themselves drinking your blood, then passed out before you noticed them. Tourists are another issue. My wife wanted to
drive up Haleakala recently while we staying on Maui. The light was wonderful, and remarkably, it wasn't windy. But just as we arrived at the overlook, so did a
huge tour bus full of young Japanese tourists. I thought to myself, O Crap! But as they piled off the bus, nearly all them congregated around the parking lot taking pictures of each other plus selfies, gabbing, flirting, etc, and nearly none even bothered to walk a few yards to view the sight they had allegedly come to see, and had obviously paid for. So me and my wife were uninterrupted in terms of any photographs we wanted; and I got some nice ones. But that experience also reinforced my stereotype that bus tourists are themselves basically mindless gnat swarms that you can never really predict.

[Bob Salomon]

The midges probably just got inebriated themselves drinking your blood, then passed out before you noticed them. Tourists are another issue. My wife wanted to
drive up Haleakala recently while we staying on Maui. The light was wonderful, and remarkably, it wasn't windy. But just as we arrived at the overlook, so did a
huge tour bus full of young Japanese tourists. I thought to myself, O Crap! But as they piled off the bus, nearly all them congregated around the parking lot taking pictures of each other plus selfies, gabbing, flirting, etc, and nearly none even bothered to walk a few yards to view the sight they had allegedly come to see, and had obviously paid for. So me and my wife were uninterrupted in terms of any photographs we wanted; and I got some nice ones. But that experience also reinforced my stereotype that bus tourists are themselves basically mindless gnat swarms that you can never really predict.

My wife had won an all expense trip to Hawaii for us back in 1980. There were 100 or so winners on the trip and one day we had a trip to the volcano. So we all got on the bus and while driving up to the site the tour director gave us three choices. One to spend the day walking and driving around the crater, two to stop briefly at the crater and just get off briefly or three to continue on around the crater and then stop at a gift shop and garden a few miles away. In a very strong Bronx accent a woman loudly stated that "if you have seen one hole you have seen them all" and that we should go directly to the garden center gift shop. Unfortunately that was the consensus so we saw a garden center.

[Drew Wiley]

My favorite time is at sunrise. Get up there to the top of Haleakala in the dark, then witness the birth of the world it seems, with that endless view of the Pacific.
Unfortunately, the wind can be horrific, and I've come to terms that luck is better rewarded using a MF SLR rather than a view camera/kite. The lower slopes remind me of around here, esp Marin County, with the rolling green meadows and transplanted eucalyptus and redwood groves. The only trails I've taken are over
on the wet Hana side on the Park. My wife is more interested in snorkeling and underwater shots with her little "turtle camera" than hiking the hills.

[John Kasaian]

If you shoot a Deardorff, be aware these cameras are chick magnets and you'll probably get attacked by the Swedish Bikini Team if you're not careful:o

[Alan Gales]

If you shoot a Deardorff, be aware these cameras are chick magnets and you'll probably get attacked by the Swedish Bikini Team if you're not careful:o

Just don't let groupie, Cynthia "Plaster Caster" get ahold of you, John!

[Tin Can]

Just don't let groupie, Cynthia "Plaster Caster" get ahold of you, John!

Why not? Cynthia is a close friend of mine!

[Alan Gales]

Why not? Cynthia is a close friend of mine!

I guess to each their own, Randy. Jimi was fine with it! ;)

[Tin Can]

I guess to each their own, Randy. Jimi was fine with it! ;)

The story is much bigger than that.

[Alan Gales]

The story is much bigger than that.

I can believe it.

I don't know if it was just Cynthia and her friend doing it or if there were copycats out there. Cynthia was known to have asked permission. There were rumors among Rock Stars that someone was doing it while the stars were passed out. Of course there were lots of baseless or distorted rumors out there when it came to Rock stars.

[austin granger]

I've been attacked by a hummingbird, a kestrel, and a bull elephant seal. Luckily not all at the same time.

[LabRat]

My fave was the time I was shooting in an old, overgrown memorial marker "showroom" outdoors in rural Florida somewhere...

I had an old Nikon F2 over my shoulder, when, from about 50 feet away, a (very) mean looking "junkyard" watchdog came running straight at me (at full bore) growling, and giving me a full view of his teeth... (I had WAY too many dog attacks on me growing up!!!) For once, I calmly slid the strap of the F2 (in one movement) down my arm, with the top of the strap around my hand and wrist, and swinging the camera side to side, WITH a huge smile on my face!!! The dog froze in it's tracks, then wimpered away... (I was ready to "impress" the dog by stamping "NIKON" in reverse on it's forehead...) Then I heard yelling by someone who sounded meaner than the dog, so I got outta there before the buckshot arrived...

Great way to greet customers, I thought later... And do you need a dog like that to prevent sample headstone theft!?!!!!

Steve K

[Richard Wasserman]

Steve,

A friend of mine had a similar experience, except it was with a drunk guy at a sporting event who got bashed in the head with a Leica.

My absolute worst experience was with one of the smallest creatures. I was bitten by just the right mosquito and contracted West Nile Virus—was sick as a dog for quite some time.