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50 Times People Saw Something Odd In Nature And Shared It In This Online Community (New Pics)
If you suddenly feel like being drawn to nature more than ever before, you’re not alone. This new research from the RSPB, the UK's largest nature conservation charity, revealed huge public support, 4 in 5 people to be exact, for putting nature at the heart of coronavirus recovery plans for the government.
I mean, surviving the public health crisis made us all reevaluate our life choices, values and intentions. One of which became an almost universal realization that we need more self-care, more human connection, and more of Mother Nature.
So for anyone craving greenery, animals, and soul-soothing gifts of nature, we have this amazing compilation of pictures inspired by the r/MildlyInteresting subreddit. From an unbelievable desert bloom and frozen windscreen that looks like an award-winning shot of Everest glacier to incredible flowers and weird-shaped fruits, these are the curiosities of nature people have spotted and had little choice but to share them with others.
Scroll down to upvote your favorite ones and be sure to check out our previous posts with mildly interesting quirks of nature here and here.
This post may include affiliate links.
Frost Pattern On A Car This Morning
The Way My Windscreen Froze
I Saw The End Of The Rainbow Today
To find out more about the wonders of nature, Bored Panda reached out to David Taberner, a nature photographer and English teacher based in Boston, Massachusetts. You can check out his website “Decent Nature Photography” full of David’s mesmerizing shots of nature.
Taberner said that nature photography is the most recent iteration of nature-based hobbies for him. “My spare time has always been spent in nature in one way or another: from childhood walks through the woods to long-distance backpacking in my early 20s to daily dog walks around local conservation land in my adult life. I've always liked to take pictures with my phone, but it wasn't until my partner generously gave me a DSLR for Christmas that the world of photography opened up for me.”
Yo These Vines In My Neighborhood Look Like An Elephant
The Petals Of This Camellia Flower
My Aunts Cat Has The Word No Circled In His Fur Pattern
The photographer also said that he hopes to one day use his photography to encourage conservation. “I often wonder to what degree sharing my images online harms rather than helps. Instagram pages like mine are full of beautiful images of wild animals and unspoiled landscapes, which may lead the viewer to imagine that all is well in the natural world. The truth is, things are far from okay; every day more habitat is lost to development and more carbon is emitted,” he explained. Taberner also said that the trick for him right now is “figuring out how to not perpetuate the illusion that all is well, but instead be an ally to the natural world.”
This Cat That Lives At The Parking Lot At My Job Has Extra Toes
5 Day Old Hedgehogs
This Stray Cat In Our Neighborhood Has A Perfect White Mustache
When asked what it is about nature that makes it such a magical place like no other, Taberner said that it's hard to express in words. He explained: “Waking up early and walking down a trail, away from the cars & concrete that I'm normally surrounded by, feels like a return or a homecoming. When I'm in the woods, I try to shut off the chatter in my brain and instead turn outward. I suppose it's a sort of meditation: what can I see, hear, smell, and feel? Focusing on my senses makes me feel more connected to the forest, is good for my mental health, and is extremely helpful from a photography standpoint, both in terms of finding compositions and noticing wildlife.”
“I don't think there's a doubt that people have grown distant from nature. Our alienation from nature is best illustrated by the very term ‘nature,’” Taberner told us. “We conceive of nature as something other than ourselves, a place that we can visit from time to time, but not something that we are part of or live in.”
This Geode Looks Like A Ocean Waves On The Beach
My Rhododendron Looks Like It's Trying To Run Off
I Saw Some Ants Carrying A Glove Up A Lamp
The nature photographer believes that just getting people out into nature is not as simple as it sounds. “Even among nature lovers, there seems to be a disconnect between our appreciation of nature and the often thoughtless consumption that is an everyday part of American life, including my own,” he added.
Taberner believes that although he spends so much of his time admiring the natural world, he also knows that he participates in the destruction of it with almost every purchase he makes. “The fact is, our economic system is based on the exploitation of people and the natural world. Until we transition to a sustainable, just economy, our disconnect from nature—regardless of what you or I do as individuals—will simply be baked into our way of life,” he commented.
My Cat Has One Little Curly Whisker
The Inside Of This Tree Looks Like A Fish
Our New Kitty Has 24 Toes
For those who’re wondering, the day of the nature photographer starts, as Taberner says, “painfully early” since animals are typically most active at dawn. “I wake up painfully early to get to a location where I'll have a good chance of seeing wildlife. A lot of effort and patience goes into this type of photography, from planning to scouting to trail cams to sitting in a blind for hours at a time waiting for an animal to show up.”
This Bumble Bee Lined Up Perfectly With The Stitches On My Shoe
My Grandad Showing Off His Gigantic Homegrown Cabbage
I Was Taking A Panorama Picture Of A Tree In Georgia And It Started Raining Halfway Through
When asked about his favorite memory of taking pictures in nature, Taberner recounted: “One day I went for a walk with my partner at a location where I had spent several early mornings looking for wildlife without any luck. I assumed that we wouldn't see any wildlife because it was midday, but within twenty minutes, we witnessed a family of otters eating fish on the bank of the pond and a porcupine bumbling down the trail, totally unbothered by our presence.”
It was a special moment for Taberner that’s hard to forget. “I felt so humbled like the natural world was playing a joke on me, almost as if it was laughingly saying, ‘sorry, did you think you knew something about how I work?’ I also loved that my partner was able to share in the wonder and excitement that I feel when I see animals, wild and free, in their natural habitat,” he concluded in an interview.
The Way The Light Hits This Spiderweb Makes It Look Like A Cd-Rom
The Variety Of Colors In The Eggs My Friend’s Chickens Laid
This Rainbow Vine Started Growing In My Backyard
This Tomato Looks Like A Rubber Duckie
Red Corn From Georgia
The Beautiful Tail On This Lizard I Saw
Our Cookout In Gatlinburg, Tn Was Interrupted By A Bear Who Sat Just Like A Human At The Picnic Table While He Finished Off Our Food
Believe This Might Be A Lightning Strike On A Concrete Sidewalk
Tiny Octopus I Found Inside A Seashell!
You have excellent awareness skills. They have excellent camouflage skills
The Ghost Deer That Patrols Our Neck Of The Woods
The World's Most Dangerous Plant!
This Tree I Found Grows Into Itself
I Made A Bird Friend Yesterday
This Swirly Dandelion I Found
Perfectly Round Rock I Found At The Beach
The Gradient This Clump Of Blueberries Makes
This Rock Looks Like A Decapitated Dragon's Head
I Found Glacier Water So Clear You Can Barely See It
This Big Ass Leaf. Wife For Scale
A Salt Crystal I Grew At Home
Found This Fossil Today
Elrathia kingii. One of the most common trilobite fossils, but not usually this nicely preserved. Great find.
My Grandfather Had A Red-Headed Woodpecker Land On His Leg
Found This ‘Veiled Lady’ Mushroom On A Hike This Morning Near Seoul, South Korea
Something tells me that picking this mushroom could result in supernatural vengeance
My Driveway Tomato Doing Well
Excessive Rain Resulted In Huge Blueberries
Neighbors Tree Was Struck By Lightning, It Now Blooms In Different Stages
This not caused by lightning, it's got a graft that is the wrong type of tree. Happens often with this kind of yrees. Basically it is just two types of trees in one, created by humans on accident or on purpose.
I Found A Bunch Of Rocks On A Beach And Organized Them By Color
This Weird Lemon That Grew On Our Lemon Tree
I like how they gave us a normal lemon for comparison, in case we weren't sure what lemons usually look like.
Joe, I get you. I wish I could upvote this comment more.
Load More Replies...Lemon on left: "Look, son, I know you're going through a rebellious phase, but this could damage your health"
There's a relative to lemon called hand of Buddha or something like that. Looks like one of the fingers
That's called a natural lemon. Humans altered the genetics to get to the one on the left.
welp when life gives you lemons.. :/ or... strange lemon like things..?
Isnt there a fruit called "buddas finger" or something that looks like that?
The lemon was having an identity crisis wanting to be carrot.
Went To See A Volcano That Is Only A Couple Of Kilometres Away From My Home. This Volcano Has Been Erupting For The Past Months In Iceland
These Large Pumpkins I Saw On The Freeway
My Son Was Born With A Black Spot Of Hair In His Blonde Hair. It Grows In Black, And There Is No Birth Mark Or Discoloration Under It
The Sand In Tahoe Is Magnetic And Stuck To My Phone
Tahoe, has several types of iron oxides plus pyrite, and magnetite in its sand — all of which will be attracted to the magnets on the back of an iPhone. Technically the iPhones magnets attracted the minute metals in the sand not visa versa. Still neat. I lived on the Westshore, Tahoe is truly a magical place
A Hummingbird Chilled On My Phone Today
These Insect Eggs Look Like Little Smiley Faces
Wild Horses In My Neighbor’s Yard This Morning (Nv)
This Tiny Banana I Harvested Today
This Pretty Large Dragonfly We Found
This Bag Of Grass Seed I Left Out For A Couple Months
Caught A Shiny Lobster
The Windows Xp Wallpaper Is Now A Vineyard
Had A Praying Mantis Nest Hatch By My Front Door!
We Caught A Critically Endangered Sunflower Sea Star In Our Crab Trap (Orcas Island, Wa)
A Spiral Cucumber Grew In My Garden
This Pepper Looks Like It’s Challenging Me To Fisticuffs In 1820
You could sell that to the company that does heartburn medicine commercials.
This Perfectly Aligned Sunset
This Forgotten Bike That Grew Into A Tree
A Massive Lunar Moth I Found Outside
The Time I Saw That Cloud Formation That Looked Like A World Map
I Gave A Carrot To A Caterpillar This Morning And When I Returned It Had Turned Orange And Started Pooping Carrot
I really want it to defy genetics and turn into a bright orange butterfly
Found Amethyst Pieces In A New Gravel Driveway
Wasn't this here on another thread yesterday? And it's probably purple fluorite, just an FYI, but whatever, still very pretty!
This Mini Greenhouse From The Turtle Shell Lid To My Son's Sandbox
Wow that's so cool, every time I accidentally leave a lid like that on the lawn, I end up with a yellow patch!
Purple Rain Tonight
These Beans From My Garden
Found A Very Tall Sunflower, I’m 5’10 For Comparison
my neighbors have a ton that reach the second floor window :) there so cool
This Tree Inside 7eleven
Housekeeping Staff Found An Owl In The Room Of A Guest That Checked-Out Yesterday
These things happen. I'll never forget the time I left my pack of beagles in a Holiday Inn
A Moth Landed On My Arm And Was Chillin There Long Enough We Were Able To Snag A Picture
This Cicadia I Found Looks Like It Has The McDonald's Logo On Its Head
“Please put me down sir, i have to take your dog’s order which is probably me”
The View From My Bedroom During And After A Thick Fog
100+ Year Old Clam From The Great Barrier Reef
I Found A Weed Plant Growing Out Of The Concrete
Earth Worm With Two Tails
One Of The Carrots In My Garden Decided To Put All Its Energy Into The Stem And Leaves, With Almost No Actual Carrot
These Ants Made A Neighborhood
George forgot where the front door was, so they kept making new ones! 🤣
This Triangle Shaped Rock I Found
Giant Lemon Off Our Tree
My Mate Actually Made A Comfortable Grass Couch
Shrivelled Garlic That Kind Of Looks Like Bird With No Legs
This Unusually Straight Banana
My Cherry Tomato Turned Over An Had A Naturally Made Number On It
Took This Pic Of The Blood Moon Australia Is Currently Experiencing
A Classroom In My University Has A Tree Growing Inside Of It
Inside Of This Tomato Looks Like A Perfect Strawberry
My Rose Bush Has A Really Good Looking Rose That Bloomed
This Snail With Cracked Shell, Who Mistook The Crack For The Aperture And Now Crawls Around Like That
This Nike That We Found While Hiking
Tannins From The Spruce And Peaty Soil Looks Like Blood
Old Cars Becoming The River Bank
There's A Strange Looking Fungus Growing In This Barrel In My Boyfriend's Back Yard
This Morning I Found A Bat Sleeping In My Window... Inside The Screen
Probably no one’s going to read this but be VERY careful around bats they carry rabies and if you get bitten by one even if you think it might not have broken the skin go to a hospital for rabies shots asap hopefully within 24 hours
Found A Piece Of Rock That Looks Like A Steak
Australian Flood Waters Meet The Ocean
This was a hectic flood. I was there and the mud and grime left when the flood waters receded was the worst part
This Toe, With It's Own Toe, Complete With It's Own Nail
Saw A Live Snake In The Local Goodwill Store
My Dog Found A Huge Bone At The Beach Today
I Found This Rock On A Beach...with A Hole In It...with A Star Inside The Hole!
Isn't that a children's song? Just think of the whole universe you have in there
One Of The Eggs I Bought Was All Wrinkly
Spotted A Very Caterpillar-Looking Caterpillar On My Run This Morning
Landscaping Stone I Found That Looks Exactly Like A Hunk Of Crab Leg Meat
My Lawn Made A Natural Yin Yang Symbol After A Pool Stood There
My 8yo Had This Freak Tooth Removed That Was Growing Out Of The Roof Of His Mouth Right Behind His Front Teeth
Mushrooms Growing Out Of My Old Mop
Ball Of Salt That I Took Out Of The Dead Sea
My Sister Got A Mini Starfish In Her Mussels
My Son And I Have Matching Freckles In The Same Spot
These Ice Spheres(?) That I Just Found Out My New Fridge Makes
Snowpile In The Corner Of A Building That Refuses To Melt
This Rattlesnake Was Found Bathing In The Puddle Created From A Cow Hoofprint
Water Levels At Lake Powell Are So Low You Can Find Old Wrecks Out Of The Water
I suspect that a few people whose relatives disappeared decades ago will finally get an answer
My Mom Grew A Giant Yellow Cucumber
There Is A Colony Of...something Growing In Between The Panes Of Glass Of My Window
That needs to be replaced but quick. If it is doublepaned there is an opening letting in moisture and letting out whatever that mess is.
My Bus Stop Before And After Daylight Savings
You probably feel like you stepped out of your front door onto another planet when that change takes place. :)
My GF And My Nephew Have A Very Similar Birthmark Despite They Aren’t Related At All
There Is A Plant Going From Under My Sink
At My Airbnb There’s A Mushroom Growing Out Of The Bathroom Door
My Son And I Used Molten Aluminum To Cast An Anthill. These Are The Tunnels And Rooms They Built Under Ground
It's great to see how aware people are. I mean the galaxy beans and the pod with the fisticuffs... Another person would just pass it by without seeing the humor in it.
Sorry some of us haven't seen them before. And I'm on here regularly.
Load More Replies...8 out of 10 people would NOT BELIEVE in almost 3/4 of these pictures! It really takes a keen eye to separate real phot from edited ones. .. Here THERE IS NOT ONE EDITED Photo!! PHENOMENAL, FLUBBERGASPED and JAWDROPPING PHOTS!! I`m enjoying this post so much, that I had to download almost all pictures to my drive! It`s worth having them near me in my DOWNLOADS PHOTO folder, that keeps getting bigger and bigger (currently it is about 76 of 80 GB in size) !!! KEEP FEEDING US W/POSTS LIKE THIS! MUST BUY AND ADD ONE MORE DRIVE, at least 500GB or even 1TB!
Yes they are wonderful pictures, mande.be, BUT WHY DO YOU HAVE TO USE CAPITAL LETTERS SO MUCH? I find it strange and distracting to read.
Load More Replies...It's great to see how aware people are. I mean the galaxy beans and the pod with the fisticuffs... Another person would just pass it by without seeing the humor in it.
Sorry some of us haven't seen them before. And I'm on here regularly.
Load More Replies...8 out of 10 people would NOT BELIEVE in almost 3/4 of these pictures! It really takes a keen eye to separate real phot from edited ones. .. Here THERE IS NOT ONE EDITED Photo!! PHENOMENAL, FLUBBERGASPED and JAWDROPPING PHOTS!! I`m enjoying this post so much, that I had to download almost all pictures to my drive! It`s worth having them near me in my DOWNLOADS PHOTO folder, that keeps getting bigger and bigger (currently it is about 76 of 80 GB in size) !!! KEEP FEEDING US W/POSTS LIKE THIS! MUST BUY AND ADD ONE MORE DRIVE, at least 500GB or even 1TB!
Yes they are wonderful pictures, mande.be, BUT WHY DO YOU HAVE TO USE CAPITAL LETTERS SO MUCH? I find it strange and distracting to read.
Load More Replies...