Cool, me too! I was running out of species to document in my small urban backyard garden (560 species so far), so this summer I started to look for leaf mines and cultivate them to see what hatches. Well, except for one leaf, all that hatched were tiny parasitoid wasps - but nevertheless something new to observe :)
I just wish I had local friends who’d be interested in that! All I get are very odd looks, or “ewww…”
… you browse through the photos on your smartphone and maybe only one in 100 is of a Homo sapiens.
For me try 1 in like 20,000
Wait, you guys have photos of people?
I have lots of photos of Homo sapiens hands!
My wife jokes I should be paying her to be a hand model when holding some critter for pics.
I love it that you call the “other photos” the homo sapiens ones… I can just imagine the conversation while you are showing off your finds… “oh this ones just another homo sapiens… really common around that area, but I only bother taking photos if they are doing something interesting”
I remember hearing about Charley Eiseman’s project at NENHC 2018. I got the distinct impression that you could accomplish a lot by getting “into leafminers”, and that he was regularly generating dramatic range extensions and finding new taxa just because, well, who’s into leafminers?
Right on, @choess. I exaggerate a fair amount for dramatic effect, but truly, I am getting into them. I just started this past month though after Jason Dombroskie told me about the leafmines project in the context of my budding interest in microleps. Also- galls.
In all seriousness, (I know, boo hiss), if you aren’t familiar with Charlie Eiseman check out his blog:
https://bugtracks.wordpress.com/
on iNat:
https://www.inaturalist.org/people/ceiseman
Even though not funny…this does kind of show how seriously into iNat we are. ;)
That saves me from having to type that, LOL!
When I drive 3 hours to a different county just because they don’t have a Red-tailed Hawk observation yet.
…you start a project for just this purpose
Hell, I’ve been out at -30C - generally the same species (birds), but winter is no reason not to be looking and listening!!
Did you recruit him/her?
Oh, your last point really hits home. I spent a couple of months in Mexico before I knew about iNat, and regret now how much I missed. I did get one Black Witch photo.
unfortunately not as seriously into iNat as we all are! It might have been the different upbringings :)
anyone else out there getting into powdery mildews?
Yes, my childhood was terrible. I was actually - Actually! - allowed to roam free in a little patch of bush, a pond, and some grassland! I admit, though, I’m not really as die hard as some are. I like more of the identification side of things. Let others do the hard work, and I’ll do the easy work (ha!). :)
…reminds me of this shirt logo for the “Mycologist Hiking Club”:
https://res.cloudinary.com/teepublic/image/private/s--pJ2yRmAT--/t_Preview/b_rgb:191919,c_limit,f_jpg,h_630,q_90,w_630/v1564131323/production/designs/5423144_0.jpg
(this is a link to the logo, not whoever’s selling it)