Nether portal teleporting, and tall plant destruction looks like sunflowers

When entering a nether portal (for that portal's first time [regardless of dimension]) the player will be teleported several blocks from the portal, sometimes into walls and over edges, which kills the player.

reproducing is very simple:
1: make a portal
2: go though it (doesn't matter the gamemode)
3: ???????
4: profit (observe where you are, because it once teleported me deep in the walls of a nether cave. Fortunately i was in creative, but i had to use 5 TNT to find where I was, and I couldn't find the original portal again.)

Also, when destroying a plant or flower the is 2 blocks tall, the plant will momentarily look like a sunflower. I'm not sure which direction it's facing, as it may change the same way a sunflower does.