I missed one of my local Christmas Bird Counts this year due to weather so I went out hunting for count week birds - we’ve had an ash-throated flycatcher and Ross’s goose in the area recently, and I thought it’d be nice to get those for the CBC list. But instead I stumbled upon a pink-footed goose, only the 5th state record and a lifer for me!
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/144755031
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Since I was on vacation, I saw 8 (possibly more, depending on IDs on my juncos and bluebird) specific/subspecific lifers, and though I was very excited by the Black-Billed Magpie at the time, I think my favorite now is the Acorn Woodpecker. Got a chance to see two or three calling back and forth (their call is amazing!) and watch them together with a small group of family and friends, which, though not quite as obsessively dedicated to life-listing as I am, found them as fascinating as I did! I love my family :)
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I think this is a lifer, and definitely my favorite from this week - it certainly doesn’t look like anything I’ve seen before. But I don’t really know how cladonia look at different times of the year so maybe it’s a species I’ve seen before, just not when it’s making crazy horns.
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It’s real winter now here in NYC, so recently I have not been finding anything that is new or exciting. But yesterday the NYMycological Society had a fungus walk in Central Park, so I went to that. And lucky me, thanks to some of the expert NYMS’ers, I did get to photograph some lifers:
Golden Ear Naematelia aurantia
it is is parasitic on this other species of fungus (Stereum hirsutum )
and the very pretty: # Woolly Oyster Hohenbuehelia mastrucata
and this tiny: Merismodes
and a whole long fallen branch covered in: Brown-toothed Crust Fungus Hydnoporia olivacea
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With the very limited amount of observing I’ve been able to do lately, I did not expect to get a lifer:
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/145639142
False Chanterelles
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I suppose that this is a lifer; although I may or may not have seen it before, this is certainly the first time I have identified it, even to genus: Genus Stereum
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S complicatum
Was able to get a few others of yours too. Take more views of the shrooms!
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I completely forgot there was a lifer topic, that’s what winter does to you. As first day of the year was last week, I can name some lifers, that is some specimens of Chionea genus, imo they’re idable with those photos, not sure if we have an expert of them on iNat though.
Also out of flies that I have no idea about their ids, there was one I already saw posted by a different user, so I named it, Elgiva cucularia
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Too late again, this is a lifer from last week and last year!
Slender-billed gull Chroicocephalus genei
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/145421112
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Northern Harrier on New Year’s Day!
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/146057148
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Didn’t get a lot of ids on observations that could contain new species, but from what is ided I have 2 beetles, a bug, a spider and a fly.
Tachyporus hypnorum and Spruce Cone Bug on a warmer day, for Chionea araneoides got both a male and female, Pachygnatha clercki was at around -2C, Rugilus rufipes at around -15C.
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I just found my first house centipede! I’m glad this cup was nearby to catch it in, I was shocked by how fast it was!
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I love them! They supposedly keep spiders away - and I have a terrible fear of spiders - and I think it’s actually true, I’ve never seen a big spider indoors in the 8 years we’ve been here. And the only time I see our giant house centipede is the rare times I come downstairs in the middle of the night and it will roam the walls really fast 
(I just had to convince my wife that they are good to keep, she thinks they are more terrifying than spiders.)
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I never would have guessed a month ago that my lifer count in the second week of January would be eight — out of 12!
One new mushroom, two new spiders, a new harvestman, and four new plants. Three of the plants were leafing.
Without snow cover, leafing winter plants are pretty easy to spot. And maybe it’s this unseasonable bonus hit of chlorophyll in action that makes me choose this one as my week’s favorite:
Ironic? This watercress was found less than a minute’s walk off my main street as I was heading to the bank on a trail that leads to… a cemetery.
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From the final week of December:
Was nice to finally see some parasitic fungi:
Complex Ophiocordyceps unilateralis
And for good measure, a nonnative Porcellio scaber. Not really a favorite but another addition to the life list.
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Mine is (to use Petrides’ name), Tall Gallberry. Surprisingly, another first-for-Greenville, even though it is common.
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/146540644
It’s a holly! When you start getting into biodiversity, one thing you discover is that only a few species of holly actually look like the traditional “Christmas holly.”
EDIT: Turns out that it isn’t a holly, it isn’t a Greenville first, and it technically isn’t even a lifer, because I observed this species in South Carolina in my pre-iNat years. It’s still a favorite, though, because identifying it was a learning experience.
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I photographed 4 plants for the first time today. This prickly pear has particularly impressive and vivid spines https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/146845373
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It’s not much of a big achievement, but being still relatively new to iNat, I usually get at least one or two lifers every time I go on an observing spree. My favorite one from last week was probably the River Birch (https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/146558270), a relatively common species of birch in the area I was visiting and where I live, but one I hadn’t really considered until then.
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