The identifier gap

Most of the time, I look at Needs ID observations for New England, not filtered for any particular taxa. I ignore the birds because there are enough birders (except I’ll sometimes add an ID to an Unknown observation of a bird). I identify the easy mammals - White-tailed Deer, Eastern Gray Squirrel, Eastern Chipmunk, etc. - but mostly ignore scat, tracks, and the confusing mammals like bats, Peromyscus, cottontails, and the like. I identify Eastern Newts and Eastern Red-backed Salamanders (except the lead phase of the latter), but mostly ignore the other salamanders. Sometimes I’ll ID some frogs, but not toads.

I identify lots of common, easy-to-ID plants. There are so many Red Trillium, Dwarf Ginseng, Marsh Marigold, and so on right now! But graminoids and oaks and willows and random fuzzy shrubs: nope.

I feel comfortable IDing about 3 lichens and one moss. I know just enough about lichens and bryophytes to know that most of the time, people’s observations aren’t sufficient for IDs at the species level (Frullania, anyone?).

I know virtually nothing about marine organisms. I can’t tell Green Algae from Red Algae from Brown Algae.

I make lots of moth observations, but I don’t yet feel comfortable confirming other people’s observations.

So I’m kind of a mid-level generalist. I wish I knew more, but even though I’m retired, there just aren’t enough hours in the day to make lots of observations (close to 50,000), make lots of IDs (over 200,000), run several iNat projects, AND learn, say, freshwater snails. Or even more local, common plants.