theresephillips's Journal

These are my guidelines that I have written down for my personal use to keep myself responsible and accountable! Feel free to use them as well!

• Focus on marine life observations
• Focus on plant identifications
• Focus on species until familiar
• Read the pages and research on web before identifying a observations that I’m not confident on
• Only agree with identifications that I’m very confident in
• Learn from others and ask questions
• Read identification books and websites
• Go on field trips often
• Take picture first and post later afterwards (preferably with camera)
• Take pictures of all angles possible and all important parts of plants or animals to identify
• Mark if the plant is planted as cultivated
• If many plants are in the photo, mark the desired plant
• Only do IDs that I’m confident in when tired and need to slow down
• Keep cryptic species at the genus level

will keep this updated with new guidelines as I come up with them as best as I can

About my beach trip in the afternoon, I went to the old beach since my phone died quickly, and I was looking through the beach too slowly. lol. Found quite a few limpets and my fav shell find at the beach was Purple Olive Snail (Olivella biplicata) and also Oyster-Thief (Colpomenia peregrina) was unknown until today which was cool! Went in the bushes too to find bull thistles (Cirsium vulgare) along with a special bee! However I did find quite alot today! Also went slow back home because I found lots of insects (stink bugs) in a bush on the way back which was my fav part of the trip!

Today, after I went to the beach, I decided to sort through all my seashells, rocks, and other natural objects within my nature collection. I do plan on getting rid of some through returning to nature (to the beach and in the garden). I decide to identify the shells since it's a passion of mine to bring curiosity in daily life. I have soo much fun using Seek and iNaturalist as a form as identification and read books about identifications of the natural world!

Since I have returned home for summer break, I had not been to the beaches near mt house yet. Thus, I decided to take a long roundabout walking trip to all three beaches this morning. The tide was medium to high, so I couldn't go far on the middle beach in between Iver's and the hotel nor did I had the chance to check out under the rocks for live crabs and sorts. However, I did finds lots of plants and dead crabs remains as well as birds imported from ebird, which the list can be found under my bird list in the lists. It was nice to visit the hometown beaches again, although was cloudy and humid, looking forward to more visits when the tide is lower.

Here I am going to add my list of resources that I have found and as well as given to me by some very helpful people from iNaturalist for other people to use as well! If you have more resources that I need to check out as well, please add them to the comment section as well! I am still a beginner IDer so anything helps! Will keep this list updated

https://www.whaleresearch.com/idapp
https://oceana.org/marine-life/
https://nwwildflowers.com/compare/
https://burkeherbarium.org/imagecollection/
https://burkeherbarium.org/waflora/checklist.php
https://www.wnps.org/northeast-washington
https://www.butterfliesandmoths.org/
https://www.insectidentification.org/
https://bugguide.net/node/view/15740

Here is my bird life list link:
https://www.inaturalist.org/lists/4459919-Birds-Lifelist?page=1&view=photo

I have complied all my birds listed from my bird life list from ebird and Merlin Bird ID. I update my list on a somewhat regular basis. Currently the list shows 67 species but on my Merlin Bird ID list, I have 68 species. I plan on correcting this mistake soon! (EDIT: The list is now corrected to the full 68 species! Was missing Wilson's Warbler.) The list currently has species primarily from Pacific Northwest Washington, but I do have some species from the Midwest from a trip from visiting family and I am also going on a trip to New Mexico this August.

I have included all my iNaturalist bird observations since 5/31/2024 of the date of this journal post was posted on this post as well to check out!

Today was a long hiking day through Sehome Hill trails. I went through several trails that I have not been through yet. Turns out that they were truly amazing as equally as the rest! I found mostly mushrooms, more than I have ever find on a singular trip! Many were oyster mushrooms or basket mushrooms, my favorite new fungi lifer was Genus Calocera after Dycrymyces chrysospermus (Orange Jelly Spot) and Jackrogersella multiformis (Birch Woodwart). Planning on bring my macro extension lens on my next hike and looking forward to more observations on my next hikes this next week!

Hey! I am very passionate about finding new findings every day on iNaturalist and eBird. I am in need in new places to explore, preferably in Washington and Oregon but also Canada (Vancouver and British Columbia). Let me know of any recommendations that I should check out in the summer and if you have any advice on identifying, please also add advice in the comments below or message me! Thank you!

Today, I was focused on finding insects and other animals. One of the many things that I had found on my hike was this caterpillar. It appeared to be decreeing waste products and to be dead. However, when I did ever so lightly tabbed it twice, the head moved towards the rest of soft body, away from the supposed waste. On second note, the black beads may be food and the caterpillar may be resting or have low energy levels. The low energy levels, if it is the case, I wonder if it can be the result of a disease that prevents the caterpillar from fully maturing into a butterfly or a moth. Does anyone know how to identify moths or butterflies in the open field based on the caterpillar?