Good Morning! I am new to the site, new to the forum and new to deep diving into studying the local flora and geology in my neck of the woods in Upstate, NY (Albany area). I am curious if anyone knows of any Botany and Geology clubs to join in this neck of the woods as I continue to expand my knowledge, curiosity and community here. Many thanks and looking forward to connecting!
Sarah
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Hey there @photosmithny, welcome to iNat and to the forum! I’m your neighbor to the south (Ulster county) so while I’m not aware of geology or botany-specific groups in the area I’ll welcome you to check out the natural history group I am a member of: John Burroughs Natural History Society (which is separate from the Burroughs Association)
We are a group comprised of a lot of birders but some folks and trip leaders specialize in other things or are generalists, professors, researchers, pro-amateurs, citizen scientists, etc. in interesting areas of study. While a lot of our trips (which are free and open to the public) are focused on target bird species many trips specialize in a variety of other interesting subjects such as: fungi, moths, ferns, geology, wildflowers, roadside weeds, butterflies, & winter tree ID. Most of our trips are in Ulster but several occur in Sullivan, Orange, Greene, Dutchess, Columbia and Albany Counties as well with a few multi-day trips out of state usually focused on birds but useful to tag along and do your thing too. I’m personally less of a birder these days and spend most of my time looking at insects and plants but I still learn a lot with these folks. I’m trying to get them all signed up on iNaturalist…I will succeed.
Check out five rivers, pine bush and other DEC state-run areas in the capital region and ask them who the local groups are. I bet they might know. SUNY Albany may have some info on local groups in the area too. Your cooperative extension/ master gardeners will probably know who the local botany people are as well.
Then, there’s internet searching, which is not my forte.
Hope some of that is helpful! Welcome.
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And then (for botany) there’s the club called iNaturalist 
This link
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?iconic_taxa=Plantae&place_id=2506&quality_grade=research
will show you all the crowd-identified plant observations in Albany County, with lots of ways to explore that information and all the other iNatters who have contributed it all. Use Filters => More Filters to adjust the information set to your heart’s content. Have fun and welcome!
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Thank you so much !! I will definitely check out your group and would love to join in on events that you have going on. I venture down into that neck of the woods often to explore and it will be nice to have another reason to do so!
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Awesome - thank you so much for the tip! Much appreciated as I familiarize myself with all the resources and features here!
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Will definitely be attending the Lichen event on Oct 27th :) Thank you for the link!
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Welcome! This group has local meetups, too:
https://www.meetup.com/Capital-Region-Native-Plant-Society/?_cookie-check=z_ay1Ab5SIENtlzF
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