Is it a Flying Cat? Birdwatcher Captures Strange Picture

• Ever since Bob White noticed that “nene,” a Hawaiian goose, appeared regularly as an entry in a crossword puzzle, he had waited to encounter one in the wild.
• When he finally spotted one during a trip to Hawaii, he took a picture, albeit from an unusual angle.
• The photo, at first glance, seemed to show a strange-looking flying cat!

Bob White has always wondered how a “nene” looked like. It seemed to make a common appearance in the New York Times crossword puzzle, which he used to do with his dad, as the answer to the clue “Hawaiian goose.”

Since then, he waited for his chance to actually spot one in the wild.

He finally saw the opportunity during a trip to the Haleakala National Park headquarters in Maui, Hawaii. A nene was flying just above him!

As luck would have it, the bird had already passed by before he reached his camera. He decided he would still take a picture anyway, just to commemorate the moment he finally encountered the crossword regular.

The photo ended up showing the nene from an unusual angle:

At first glance, it looked like a strange, flying cat!

Bob told The Dodo, “As soon as I downloaded the photo, I couldn’t help seeing the cat head, but knowing what it actually was, I knew that I had evidence of having seen it.”

When he shared the photo on social media, lots of people were initially confused.

“I’m amazed that the photo got over 5,000 likes in Crap Wildlife Photography, but it really does look like a cat’s head on one of Daenerys Targaryen’s pets. I don’t know if the ‘ears’ are its feet or outer rectrices [tail feathers],” he said.

Bob had been waiting for a long time to encounter a nene and was hoping to get a good photo to memorialize the event. Still, the flying cat photo ended up being a cool one, too.

Bob could probably relate to this hilarious comic by Bird and Moon Comics:

You can check out the Facebook page of Crap Wildlife Photography for more unfortunate but hilarious photos of animals.

Source: The Dodo