One afternoon, April Rose was relaxing in her bedroom when something outside her window caught her eye.
Perched on a branch was what looked like a sleek, gray bird with a long beak and fluffy feathers. Rose, an avid hobby photographer, instantly jumped out of bed. She didn’t want to miss her chance at capturing what she thought was a rare sight.
“I thought it was weird that it had been sitting there so long because I’d noticed it a few times,” Rose told The Dodo. “So I thought, ‘This is my chance.’”
Ever since receiving a Canon camera as a gift two years ago, Rose has made it her mission to photograph every bird that will sit still long enough — from herons and woodpeckers to robins and blue jays. This mystery bird was new to her, and she was excited to figure out what kind it might be.
She grabbed her camera and quickly snapped a photo. Then she zoomed in for a closer look — and suddenly realized her mistake.
“After taking the second or the third photo, I was like, ‘Wait a second. That’s not even a bird,’” Rose said with a laugh. “It’s a leaf.”
What she had mistaken for a bird was nothing more than a perfectly positioned leaf, shaped just enough like a fluffy bird to fool her at first glance.
Instead of being embarrassed, Rose decided to share the moment. She posted her photos in the “Crap Bird Photography” Facebook group with the caption: ‘I ran to grab my camera to take a picture of this awesome bird … turned out to be a leaf.’
To her surprise, thousands of people loved it. Comments flooded in from people admitting they, too, had once been duped by a crafty leaf, a shadow, or even a crumpled piece of trash that looked like an animal.
Everyone agreed on one thing: if that leaf had been a bird, it would have been an awesome one.
As for Rose, she has no regrets about racing for her camera. “I thought it was a really cool leaf, so I wasn’t disappointed in any way,” she said. “To me, it still looks like a bird.”
