gyrrlfalcon's Journal

So here we are in 2018. Somehow we survived 2017, as a planet, but I still feel a compulsion to document the organisms around us.

Having reached 20,000 iNat observations, I want to continue to pick up this pace, and reach 30,000 by the end of the year. That only amounts to 30/day: eminently doable, if exhausting.

I will also strive to write more journal entries. Some may be specific to projects in which I have some role. But I observe many more things daily than I ever record, and so some of that knowledge is lost to me if I don't write it down.

For instance, this morning I found an excellent resource for Ohio lichenology - http://ohiomosslichen.org/.
I found it through this entertaining romp through a lichen key - http://bobklips.com/latemarch2009.html
I also learned that lichens have emerged many separate times, evolutionarily.

My other resolution will be in my next journal entry - to take walks with many of you, my dear iNaturalist friends! Convivial BioBlitzes, I'll call them.

Made my first visit today to Lower La Honda Creek Open Space Preserve, near the hamlet of La Honda. There with other iNaturalist addicts @dpom and @leslie_flint , as well as @tui and Doug. We saw the desired Vesper Sparrow, but so much more - a beautiful stand of Golden-eye Lichen, a Coyote, and an active Northern Harrier.

We then went to the eastern end of Gazos Creek Road, where we failed to find the recently reported American Dipper. We did, however, explore the rich lichen and fungi in the area. At one point, some hikers emerged from a previously unnoticed and unknown (to us) trail, and saw how we were looking at the lichens. They knew their lichens! AND, best of all, they recommended that we use iNaturalist! LOL! It was as if we had been transported into a future parallel universe, in which everyone cared about nature and everyone used iNat!