Diario de whichchick

I keep going back and updating my list of ever-observed odes and that's tedious. It just is. And I'm thinking about what might be more useful than Just A List. I mean, an ever-observed-even-once list is more helpful than no list at all.

But... is Just-A-List sufficient? Is that the endgame?

I don't think so. You can get some information from that list, but you can do even better with different sorts of observation.

Look at, for example, how many of a given species do you see per day? If you only ever see one, once, maybe that's not a species that is very important or relevant. Maybe that's a random, wind-blown odonate who's transiently at your wetland. You see like six or seven Ladona julia every time you go to the dock at the lodge for a month-long period? Probably they're there and healthily so.

How about species observed eclosing, in tandem, or ovipositing? Those are good indicators that the species is breeding in the habitat.

Interesting would be a "Seen This Year" list, perhaps a "Seen This Year" list with checks for each DAY SEEN that seeing was attempted. Also should be included Days Not Seen where seeing was attempted. That'd give a better indication of emergence time and prevalence and flight period for each species.

I can't observe odes every day. I do not have time. I have a non-odes job and several non-odes interests. But, I can do a bit better than Just A List. I should do a bit better than Just A List.

But, Just A List is a good place to start. When you're starting from nothing, Just A List is something.

This is the current Just A List for my area, asterisks for the ones I am the only county record for...

Tachopteryx thoreyi, Grey Petaltail
Sympetrum vicinum, Autumn Meadowhawk
Stenogomphurus rogersi, Sable Clubtail
*Somatochlora tenebrosa, Clamp-tipped Emerald
Plathemis lydia, Common Whitetail
Perithemis tenera, Eastern Amberwing
*Phanogomphus spicatus, Dusky Clubtail
Phanogomphus lividus, Ashy Clubtail
Phanogomphus exilis, Lancet Clubtail
Pachydiplax longipennis, Blue Dasher
*Libellula vibrans, Great Blue Skimmer
Libellula semifasciata, Painted Skimmer
Libellula pulchella, Twelve-Spot Skimmer
Libellula luctuosa, Widow Skimmer
Libellula incesta, Slaty Skimmer
Libellula cyanea, Spangled Skimmer
*Libellula axilena, Bar-winged Skimmer
Lestes vigilax, Swamp Spreadwing
*Lanthus vernalis, Southern Pygmy Clubtail
Ladona julia, Chalk-fronted Corporal
*Ladona deplanata, Blue Corporal
Ischnura verticalis, Eastern Forktail
Ischnura posita, Fragile Forktail
*Ischnura kellicotti, Lilypad Forktail
Hagenius brevistylus, Dragonhunter
Erythemis simplicicollis, Eastern Pondhawk
Epiaeschna heros, Swamp Darner
Epithaca cynosura, Common Baskettail
Epitheca princeps, Prince Baskettail
*Enallagma vesperum, Vesper Bluet
Enallagma signatum, Orange Bluet
*Enallagma geminatum, Skimming Bluet
Enallagma divagans, Turquoise Bluet
Enallagma aspersum, Azure Bluet
Dromogomphus spinosus, Black-shouldered Spinyleg
Didymops transversa, Stream Cruiser
*Cordulegaster obliqua, Arrowhead Spiketail
Cordulegaster maculata, Twin-Spotted Spiketail
Cordulegaster bilineata, Brown Spiketail
Chromagrion conditum, Aurora Damsel
Celithemis elisa, Calico Pennant
Calopteryx maculata, Ebony Jewelwing
Boyeria vinosa, Fawn Darner
Basiaeschna janata, Springtime Darner
Argia moesta, Powdered Dancer
Argia fumipennis, Variable Dancer
Anax junius, Common Green Darner
Aeshna umbrosa, Shadow Darner

That's 48. I think we can do better than that yet still. Bluets, clubtails, and darners -- my game is weak. But for ten of those I am the only record on OC for the species in my county. Go me.

Seriously if you live in a rural county somewhere in the heart of Greater Rednecklandia, you can totally Improve The Scientific Record with a net and a digital camera and a couple of summer weekends. Like, it's THAT EASY. Go!

It is not spring yet, here. I want it to be, but it is not. sigh I've been using the off season to look into more information on assorted local things. And stuff. Good things for people in PA: The Frost (PSU) has a HREF="http://sites.psu.edu/frost/">blog and a bunch of stuff you can look at directly, like Actual Field Journals from people. They're digitized. How cool is that?

And also my state does a county-by-county survey of Things Of Interest including discussions of habitat and whatnot. Free. Quite cool. Might be helpful if you're looking for a thing and can't find it. The surveys tell you where to look. Obviously DO NOT hurt anything you're out there looking for. Don't be a dick. We have plenty of dicks in the world, do not be one.

I went to a talk at my not-exactly-local state park regarding odonates. The speaker was enthusiastic and informative and really enjoyed the subject, but also pitched odonatacentral.org, the which was pitched so enthusiastically that I went over and signed up for an account. Odonatacentral is a lot like iNat only just for odonates and they have approved vetters instead of citizen vetters. But, same deal pretty much. One of the nice things they do is offer county checklists for you so that you can go and find the stuff that is supposed to be in your county.

Guess what?

The county level checklists, generated from Actual County Observation Records, suck. They're slightly better if you live in a county with a major land-grant university (Centre County, PA, home of Penn State, comes to mind), a flashy and substantial water feature (Raystown Lake, Huntington County, PA, I am looking directly at you), or a couple of state parks. But if you live in plain old Greater Rednecklandia, the county records for your county probably suck and the more Greater Rednecklandia you are, the worse the records are likely to be. Therefore, the procedurally generated county level checklists... also likely to suck.

They're better than nothing, but they are not as good as they COULD be. I was thinking about this because when I started playing OC, the species checklist for my county (Fulton County, PA) had 53 species on it. In about a month of effort, I added six species to the checklist (by verified photographic records) that had absolutely no other records in the county. I am a rank amateur doing this in my spare time with a home-made net on a relatively uninspired third-growth wooded tract of about five hundred acres equipped with several streams, some swampy bits, and a fairly shallow 40-acre human-built impoundment from the 1960's. When your county checklist of odonate species is off by 10%, it is not a good list.

So blah blah, my county list is not particularly great. Could there be a better county list? Certainly. How might one be generated?

Well, odonates fly. They're mobile. And while the records for my county are crappy, there are four counties (more or less) that abut my county: Bedford, Huntington, Franklin (in PA) and Washington (in MD). Those counties have checklists as well, and they may be more informed than my county checklist. Also there might be stuff on their checklists that is not on my checklist. What I really want is a checklist of stuff that I might be able to find, ranked according to the odds of me finding it.

It is not enough to go through life wanting things, so I made the thing I wanted. Here's how:

1. Identify the counties that abut your target county. This is easiest to do with their map, which has county names on it.
2. Pull the species checklists for your target county and all adjoining counties. I used cut-n-paste-as-flat-text so that I'd get just words and not links or other stuff.
3. Employ some shell scripting to massage the data into a better format. I am a crappy shell scripter, so probably real programmers can do this better than I did. I used google and did one step at a time because I suck.

cat fivecounties.txt | xargs -n3 -d’\n’ > test1.txt
This takes the text file "fivecounties.txt" and removes newlines so that there are no blank lines.
sort test1.txt > test2.txt
This groups like entries together so that all the "Anax junius Common Green Darner" entries are together.
cat test2.txt | uniq -c > test3.txt
This counts the # of entries for each species.
cat test3.txt | grep ‘5’ | sed -e s/[[:space:]]5[[:space:]]//g > 5counts.txt
This looks for the entries that occurred 5 times (in all counties) and outputs that list. I repeated this for the things in 4 counties, in 3 counties, etc...1>

So at the end, I got a list ordered from "Most Common, Found In Target County And All Surrounding Counties" to "Only One Record, Possibly Itinerant Or Mistaken Identity". And THIS list... this is a checklist I can get behind. It's a lot more informative. It's a lot more useful. (Here is not OdonataCentral but there they do not have a blog/journal feature.)

The new, improved, better Fulton County PA Odonate Species Checklist, with ones I have located bolded for convenience:

ALL FIVE COUNTIES:
Anax junius Common Green Darner
Argia fumipennis Variable Dancer
Arigomphus villosipes Unicorn Clubtail
Calopteryx maculata Ebony Jewelwing
Celithemis elisa Calico Pennant
Dromogomphus spinosus Black-shouldered Spinyleg
Enallagma aspersum Azure Bluet
Enallagma civile Familiar Bluet
Enallagma signatum Orange Bluet
Epitheca cynosura Common Baskettail
Epitheca princeps Prince Baskettail
Erythemis simplicicollis Eastern Pondhawk
Hagenius brevistylus Dragonhunter
Ischnura posita Fragile Forktail
Ischnura verticalis Eastern Forktail
Libellula cyanea Spangled Skimmer
Libellula incesta Slaty Skimmer
Libellula luctuosa Widow Skimmer
Libellula pulchella Twelve-spotted Skimmer
Macromia illinoiensis Swift River Cruiser
Pachydiplax longipennis Blue Dasher
Perithemis tenera Eastern Amberwing
Phanogomphus lividus Ashy Clubtail
Plathemis lydia Common Whitetail
Sympetrum rubicundulum Ruby Meadowhawk
Sympetrum semicinctum Band-winged Meadowhawk
Sympetrum vicinum Autumn Meadowhawk

FOUR COUNTIES:
Aeshna umbrosa Shadow Darner
Argia apicalis Blue-fronted Dancer
Argia sedula Blue-ringed Dancer
Argia translata Dusky Dancer
Basiaeschna janata Springtime Darner
Boyeria vinosa Fawn Darner
Calopteryx angustipennis Appalachian Jewelwing
Chromagrion conditum Aurora Damsel
Didymops transversa Stream Cruiser
Enallagma basidens Double-striped Bluet
Enallagma divagans Turquoise Bluet
Enallagma exsulans Stream Bluet
Enallagma geminatum Skimming Bluet
Enallagma hageni Hagen’s Bluet
Epiaeschna heros Swamp Darner
Hetaerina americana American Rubyspot
Lestes rectangularis Slender Spreadwing
Leucorrhinia intacta Dot-tailed Whiteface

Libellula semifasciata Painted Skimmer
Phanogomphus exilis Lancet Clubtail

THREE COUNTIES:
Aeshna tuberculifera Black-tipped Darner
Aeshna verticalis Green-striped Darner
Argia moesta Powdered Dancer
Boyeria grafiana Ocellated Darner
Cordulegaster maculata Twin-spotted Spiketail
Cordulegaster obliqua Arrowhead Spiketail
Enallagma traviatum Slender Bluet
Enallagma vesperum Vesper Bluet
Helocordulia uhleri Uhler’s Sundragon
Ladona julia Chalk-fronted Corporal
Lestes vigilax Swamp Spreadwing
Pantala flavescens Wandering Glider
Somatochlora tenebrosa Clamp-tipped Emerald
Stylogomphus albistylus Eastern Least Clubtail
Tramea carolina Carolina Saddlebags
Tramea lacerata Black Saddlebags

TWO COUNTIES:
Aeshna canadensis Canada Darner
Aeshna constricta Lance-tipped Darner
Amphiagrion saucium Eastern Red Damsel
Celithemis eponina Halloween Pennant
Cordulegaster bilineata Brown Spiketail
Cordulia shurtleffii American Emerald
Enallagma antennatum Rainbow Bluet
Epitheca canis Beaverpond Baskettail
Gomphaeschna furcillata Harlequin Darner
Gomphurus fraternus Midland Clubtail
Gomphurus vastus Cobra Clubtail
Hylogomphus abbreviatus Spine-crowned Clubtail
Ischnura hastata Citrine Forktail
Ladona deplanata Blue Corporal
Lanthus vernalis Southern Pygmy Clubtail
Lestes congener Spotted Spreadwing
Lestes dryas Emerald Spreadwing
Lestes forcipatus Sweetflag Spreadwing
Lestes inaequalis Elegant Spreadwing
Libellula axilena Bar-winged Skimmer
Libellula vibrans Great Blue Skimmer
Macromia alleghaniensis Allegheny River Cruiser
Nehalennia irene Sedge Sprite
Neurocordulia obsoleta Umber Shadowdragon
Ophiogomphus rupinsulensis Rusty Snaketail
Pantala hymenaea Spot-winged Glider
Phanogomphus spicatus Dusky Clubtail
Rhionaeschna mutata Spatterdock Darner
Somatochlora linearis Mocha Emerald
Stenogomphurus rogersi Sable Clubtail
Sympetrum obtrusum White-faced Meadowhawk
Tachopteryx thoreyi Gray Petaltail

ONE COUNTY:
Anax longipes Comet Darner
Archilestes grandis Great Spreadwing
Argia tibialis Blue-tipped Dancer
Calopteryx amata Superb Jewelwing
Cordulegaster diastatops Delta-spotted Spiketail

Cordulegaster erronea Tiger Spiketail
Dorocordulia libera Racket-tailed Emerald
Enallagma anna River Bluet
Enallagma annexum Northern Bluet
Enallagma carunculatum Tule Bluet
Enallagma ebrium Marsh Bluet
Gomphurus lineatifrons Splendid Clubtail
Hetaerina titia Smoky Rubyspot
Hylogomphus viridifrons Green-faced Clubtail
Ischnura kellicotti Lilypad Forktail
Lanthus parvulus Northern Pygmy Clubtail
Lestes australis Southern Spreadwing
Lestes disjunctus Northern Spreadwing
Lestes eurinus Amber-winged Spreadwing
Lestes unguiculatus Lyre-tipped Spreadwing
Leucorrhinia frigida Frosted Whiteface
Leucorrhinia hudsonica Hudsonian Whiteface
Leucorrhinia proxima Belted Whiteface
Libellula auripennis Golden-winged Skimmer
Libellula flavida Yellow-sided Skimmer
Libellula quadrimaculata Four-spotted Skimmer
Nasiaeschna pentacantha Cyrano Darner
Nehalennia gracilis Sphagnum Sprite
Neurocordulia yamaskanensis Stygian Shadowdragon
Ophiogomphus carolus Riffle Snaketail
Ophiogomphus mainensis Maine Snaketail
Phanogomphus borealis Beaverpond Clubtail
Phanogomphus descriptus Harpoon Clubtail
Phanogomphus quadricolor Rapids Clubtail
Somatochlora elongata Ski-tipped Emerald
Somatochlora walshii Brush-tipped Emerald
Stylurus laurae Laura’s Clubtail
Stylurus spiniceps Arrow Clubtail
Sympetrum internum Cherry-faced Meadowhawk

That's 134 species. That's a way better list of things that are likely to be found in my area. However, look closely at that last batch, the "only one record" batch. See the Lilypad Forktail? That's my record. So... it can happen. McElligot's Pool, ya'll.

So... remember I said the county records sucked? They do. It's not the fault of OC.org, they're doing the best they can. However, science needs more boots on the ground. If nobody is out there looking for them, the odonates go unobserved. Get outside. Be a boot on the ground for science!

It's been a wet early-summer over here. Every time I cut the grass I see like six leopard frogs. I mowed the XC fences (turned up a box turtle and a longtailed salamander) and took a stroll with Brother-the-Younger wherein we spotted a rattlesnake (which of course I photographed for iNat and PARS). I have to find the time to survey dragonflies this year (and mend my net) plus also get in the kayak to see if I can nail down a watersnake and the basking turtles. Brother-the-Elder says we have an osprey in the ratty old pine on the point, but I haven't gotten a pic of it yet. :(

I feel like I need more hours in the day. This morning I got several excellent photographs of the groundhog that lives under my house with the fancy telephoto lens. I wish groundhogs were more photogenic. But, they are what they are. I'll upload them this evening, time permitting.

I still have no squirrel or chipmunk pictures. Heck, I should have more deer pictures. This is not because we lack squirrels or chipmunks or deer. I need to do better at mammals in general. Bunnies. Mice. Skunk, opossum, raccoon, muskrat, beaver. Foxes, bear, porcupine.

Lots of rocks on the first six or seven miles. Easy walking for the last five or six miles. Saw lots of stuff that was kind of interesting, including but not limited to ... first trillium in the wild, wild sasparilla, spring beauties, box turtle, red newt on top of ridge, flowering shrubs I do not know what are, butternut tree, ladyslipper orchids (on top of ridge?! I didn't know they did that.), some kind of millipedes, lots of things. It was about twelve miles of hike, though, and I was seriously tired by the end. Fitbit says 170 'flights of stairs' or something. There were no stairs. Just Tussey Mountain.

Birds are difficult for me to photograph. Today I saw a pileated woodpecker. White following patches on wings, red crested head, Kuk-kuk-kuk. It's a pretty distinctive bird, but I was not particularly quickdraw on my phone so, lolnope.

Yesterday I was taking a smallish tree off the road, surprised the beaver at the playground. (It's an itinerant young beaver, the which we get sometimes. They are cleared out when we get 'em because I have a friend who traps. But there's a permanent population downstream and every couple of years we get some when the parents throw them out into the world.) I went from "that is not a goose" to "Heck it's a beaver" to Tail slap and submerged departure.

Frogs. We have more than spring peepers but apparently I am not good at recording frogs. They just shut up when I whip out the phone. Bad frogs. Also I can't see the darned things, ever. Frogs are better at camo than I am at seeing frogs.

Squirrels (I do not live in suburbia) run to the other side of the tree. Stupid squirrels.

And even when I can Photograph The Observation, sometimes the picture is not so much "Observe The Observation" as it is "Find The Salamander". I said last time that I wasn't going to spam people with pictures of newts, but apparently I do not understand what people want to see... so... here you go, a game of what I like to think of as Spot The Newt. Each of these pictures contains AT LEAST one more-or-less visible newt. Two pictures have two newts. Have fun!

In the review of literature I posted a link to (http://publications.aston.ac.uk/15210/1/Folios_lichen_growth_review_for_pdf.pdf), a resource I'm using because it's online and free, there is some fun stuff. I'll try an ELI5 for you.

Scientist Armstrong, in a 1984 effort to understand how round, foliose lichens (specifically, these ones here: https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/203800-Xanthoparmelia-conspersa ) grew, cut the lichens apart along the lobes of the thallus structures and then GLUED THEM BACK TOGETHER either in the same arrangement or in a different arrangement to see if they grew any differently. Imma quote the summarized results from the literature review but add some bold for decoration and to help with clarity and the wow factor.

"In addition, gluing the lobes in a different configuration from the original or constructing thalli in which each lobe was removed from a different ‘parent’ thallus did not affect the degree of lobe growth variation. These results support the hypothesis that lobe growth variation is a property of individual lobes and not of the thallus as a whole."

Neat, innit? This frankensteining of lichens suggests strongly that each individual lobe on a thallus (one part of a round foliose lichen) is kind of its own thing.

In a somewhat less-foliose lichen, they also retain some individuality (or whatever) even after they grow together. You can see this in a nice picture I took of what I'm pretty sure is a cluster of Porpidia albocaerulescens. It was striking because the sections reminded me of giraffe spots, kinda. Anyways.

If they all grew into each other or something, it'd be one big lichen without interior boundaries. But it doesn't do that. The boundaries between what used to be separate lichens are clearly visible even after they grew together. I wonder what's going on there?

Is there some sort of minimal-distance-from-the-edge for the little cup fruiting structures? Chemical signalling? Border wars? The mind boggles.

It was lovely out on Saturday. I spent most of the day outside doing yard work but late in the afternoon, I got the kayak out and paddled up to the top of the lake to see about the things going on there. I didn't have as long to spend as I wanted b/c I had to go to a birthday cookout, but I made an effort.

It is difficult to take cellphone pix of dragonflies. However, the common green darner was out and about, in wheel with partner, which I did not expect this early in the year.

I also saw some kind of smallish basking turtles that plopped into the water before I could get close to them. I need to sneak up on them with my actual real camera and honkin' big telephoto lens because the stupid turtles are not cellphone-pix compliant.

Ordinary newts (N. viridescens ssp. viridescens) are active in the lake and have been for a while, no biggie there. I'm not gonna spam ya'll with pix of ordinary newts. We have 'em and they are plentiful as hell.

Didn't see the watersnakes yet but we have 'em. More research is needed there.

I also scouted out where I think the rattlers den up, an area for further inspection when it gets warmer. Need tall boots for that, I reckon, and possibly a telephoto lens b/c do not want to get up in the snakes personal business or anything. Not trying to harass the sneks. They're not out and about until May anyhow, especially when the April is as crappy as this one has been.

As yet the aquatic vegetation is barely tipping green. Cattails and such are like an inch above ground because it is still (mostly) cold here. Still interested in sedges but I can't do much on the ID front when they're like an inch of pointy green bits.

Last week I set the game cam up where I think the fisher lives. It needs to be there for like two weeks -- they have a decent sized range -- so I won't be up to get it until the first week of May. Not worried someone else will take it, as it's way back in the sticks and relatively inconspicuous. Here's hoping for fisher pix but y'know, maybe that's all in my mind.

I am seriously jealous of other people's (further south) spring pix. Still not spring here.

It shall come to pass that you disagree with others on the internet. Note that I said "shall" and not "may". It shall come to pass. You may not want it to come to pass and you may not be INTENDING that it come to pass, but if you are on the internet and express an opinion, someone, somewhere is going to disagree with you. Let us regard a photo.

This, I think we can all agree, is a picture of some sort of plant. The photograph was taken in North Carolina, United States, information I am providing because it can be helpful in narrowing down what the plant could possibly be. The photo was taken in late March, but the plant displays what appears to be fully mature foliage, suggesting that it's an evergreen sort of a thing.

Now, here is where it gets a little difficult. First off, I do not know how many kinds of broadleaf evergreen things might be found in North Carolina. Hollies and such, I guess, and mountain laurel. Rhododendrons, regular and catawba, probably. Are any of the magnolias evergreen? I got nothin'. The only ones I know up north drop their leaves easily. Could be some evergreen-ish magnolias down south, I wouldn't know.

What I DO know is stuff that lives around me and that stuff REALLY influences my guesses in a prejudicial way. (If you live in Africa and hear hoofbeats your odds of being correct when you guess "ZEBRA" are way better than my odds here in Pennsylvania. Here? It's someone's horse. Or cows. Or deer. Or a very thuddy golden retriever. It is not a zebra in Pennsylvania, most of the time. I mean, it COULD be a zebra, but there would have to be some pretty substantial aligning of cosmic forces to have the hoofbeats be a zebra here. In Pennsylvania, zebras are not the way to bet.) Where I am, in the ridge-n-valley part of Pennsylvania, the referenced photo (which is not mine and which I am not crediting because I don't want a flame war over a plant ID) looks like some kind of Rhododendron thing. It looks more like that (to me) than anything else.

Is it? I have no idea. I don't know, with any certainty, what it is.

I THINK it's a Rhododendron-thing because that's what it maps onto the best OUT OF WHAT I KNOW and OUT OF WHAT I AM FAMILIAR WITH. The depth of my "broadleaf evergreen" chart is not particularly great, either. I got Rhododendron maxima and Kalmia latifolia and that's about it. I know hollies as a group exist but I couldn't tell you much about them, not how many kinds nor how to tell one kind from another. My point here is that if all you have is a hammer, it's easy to go around thinking your problems are nails. Am I having a "hammer" problem with this plant ID? Quite possibly.

How does this feed into disagreeing with others on the internet? The internet (or at least the iNat portion of the internet) has decided (at the time of this writing) that the above referenced plant is a K. latifolia, a mountain laurel. There are sufficient "agree" votes on the ID for it to have research status. In my heart of hearts, I do not think that the pictured plant is a Kalmia latifolia. I do not. I think it's a Rhododendron. However, I have been outvoted.

While it puts sand in my gears to be disagreed with, I am not certain enough that it's a Rhododendron thing to stand by my vote when outvoted. I am not a botanist. I cannot put real clear reasons on why this looks like a rhododendron thing to me instead of a kalmia thing. The leaves are too oval? Not shiny enough? Not pointy enough? The leaves are too flat and not creased along the main vein? The stems look too clubby and thick? The leaves are arranged in sort of droopy rosettes and kalmias aren't that rosetty and droopy at the same time? While these are my reasons, they sound weak and insubstantial, fuzzy-wuzzy and handwave-y. They are not reasons that convince anyone else... they still think it's a kalmia.

So maybe I'm wrong. I withdrew my ID because this is not a fight I'm willing to take to the mattresses. It's not. If the leaves were blue and K. latifolia NEVER EVER had blue leaves while R. maxima always 100% had blue leaves, then I'd be more firm. But the... too oval, not shiny enough, not pointy enough, too flat and uncreased, too clubby and thick, droopy rosetty arrangement? Yeah. It's handwave-y. It's not worth dying for.

Inat is a for-fun thing I do in my spare time and I know very, very little about what I'm doing. Many other people here know a lot more than I do about this stuff. There are some things I know (not very damn many) and some things I do not know (many many many) and sometimes even the things that I think I know, I do not actually know. I'm Jon Snow'in it up in here, you betcha.

So, I withdraw IDs and I hazard guesses. I am sometimes incorrect. I do the best I can and I try to do better and I withdraw when I feel I am wrong or might be wrong. It's difficult for me to accept that I will sometimes be wrong and NOT KNOW OR THINK I COULD POSSIBLY BE WRONG even when being smote by cunning and reasonably-convincing arguments from the loyal opposition, but I'm working on it.

At the end of the day, I try to remember that identifying things confidently can be rather tricky (Meadowhawks -- Sympetrum species -- I am looking directly at you.) even for experts and I am no expert at this.

When you start looking at things and trying to know things, it is important to get some experience in looking at things IN PERSON and IN REAL LIFE. The computer is helpful, field guides are helpful, all of that is wonderful but even more wonderful and super and great is going out INTO THE WORLD and looking at things, hopefully a lot of things.

Let me illustrate. Let's say that you have three species of tree that are native to your area... let's say they're (a) Prunus serotina (black cherry) and (b) Betula lenta (black birch) and (c) Fagus grandifolia (American beech). Here is a picture of them, side by side for easy comparison.

You know from your tree guides that each of these trees has an alternate leaf structure and fairly slender, graceful twigs. If it were summer, you could compare leaves, but it's winter and you still want to look at trees. This is where some time in the real world (or a dendrology textbook that is priced beyond the realm of mere mortals) will help you.

With some time in the real world, you get to know your trees a bit better. You might learn that Prunus serotina smells horrible if you bruise the bark on a twig or break one off. Seriously, it's a bitter, poison smell. (A fairly small quantity of wilted black cherry leaves can kill horses. I think it has something to do with cyanide-ish chemicals in the leaves.) Good to know and also diagnostic.

You might notice that Betula lenta smells (and tastes) like wintergreen. It's a very nice, strong wintergreen-y smell and it is not subtle or easy to confuse with other things.

For its part, Fagus grandifolia doesn't smell like much of anything but if you spend some time in the woods in winter, you soon learn that its slender, graceful twigs tend to retain their leaves. For this reason, you can spot an American beech pretty far off in the woods during winter, once you know to look for the light brown, pale leaves clinging to it.

(There are a lot of bark pictures posted here on iNaturalist and that's all right as far as it goes, but bark is hard to judge without scale and many trees exhibit different bark forms at different parts of their lives. If you want to go by bark, I'm not exactly your huckleberry over here. Bark should only be one part of your winter diagnostic tool set, not the whole of it.)

But even more than helpful and fun facts about what trees smell like (and if you think that's not diagnostic, you've never smelled black cherry, sassafras, tulip poplar, black walnut, hickory... seriously, smell is a helpful diagnostic sometimes.), getting to know your trees in person means that you can differentiate these three twigs (above) even when they're one-by-each and not stacked together so that you can see how different they are despite being all 'slender branches with alternately-arranged leaves".

Practice and experience will help you learn that Prunus serotina has tiny, roundish buds and a very straight twig structure that doesn't zig-zag at all.

Practice and experience will teach you that Betula lenta zig-zags a little bit and has slender, pointy buds that diverge from the stem a bit.

Practice and experience get you to where you find the extremely long and very pointy, strongly divergent buds of Fagus grandifolia diagnostic even if you didn't notice the retained foliage when you gathered the twig to study.

Real world experience helps you base your identifications on more than just one quality. You don't identify using just one thing (most of the time) -- you use several things. I don't know it's black cherry because it smells bad. I know it's black cherry because it smells bad AND the buds are right AND the bark is right AND (let's be honest, here) it's growing alongside my yard and I remember the dangling white flowers from last summer. It's a black cherry I know personally, OK? (It was like 37 F and snowing out when I gathered these twigs for you. I wasn't going to go hunt up a different cherry when I had one mere steps from the door.) But even if it wasn't the one in my yard, I would still know it for a black cherry because of a variety of markers.

I don't know it's a black birch because of the wintergreen. I know because of the main trunk bark and the wintergreen and the graceful twigs that are planar on the branch (very flat) and the brown bark on the twigs and the pointy-ness of the buds. There are many things that go towards "black birch" and not just one thing.

It's an American beech because of the smooth grey bark, the almost formal pyramid shape of the tree, the retained blonde-brown winter foliage, the extremely long, very divergent, super-pointy buds. All of those things go for American beech, not just one.

My point here, iterated three times because it is important, is that identification of these species should be a gestalt for you... not just ONE point of comparison (slender, alternately-arranged leaves) but MANY points of comparison. Field guides do the best that they can, but most consumer ones are not going to include all the things that you will notice (and remember) for yourself out in the field. Real world experience at identifying actual trees, will make you a better identifier, a more confident identifier, an identifier for all seasons.

So, get out there and look at some trees!

(For those of us in the mountains of the Northeastern US... Quick, before the leaves get here!)