I see that almost every post I have put on here is about birding so I am going to write something about my first love as a naturalist and that is invertebrates. I got into insects mostly when I was six years old. If you don’t know the epic story, I was watching a sheep show at a 4-H fair when I put my fingers under the bench. A stag beetle latched its mandibles onto one of my fingers through the nail. I screamed that day and pretty much stopped the show while everyone came to my aid. Rather than becoming fearful of things that crawl for the rest of my life, I had an insatiable curiosity. I saw the insect collections at the state fair that year and as soon as I was old enough began entering my own collections. My collections were almost always a sure winner at the local fair. (Sometimes my brother took the honor). I took a hiatus from collecting during my teen years but got back into it in college as a biology student. Now I do more photographing than collecting. Side note: I also made an insect trading card game that simulates real life insect ecology. More on this later but maybe check out the facebook page for Insect Armageddon. (I might be changing the name).
I am new to using inaturalist. I have been religious about submitting my bird findings on ebird (it’s just so easy), but inaturalist has been put on hold. Now that is summer and there’s not many new bird around to chase, I have started photographing insects with my daughters. They actually get interested in that. They could care less about birds. Let’s share some pics:
I’ve decided to try to find every known common species of spider in Illinois and Missouri and post photographs onto inaturalist. I haven’t got into any competitive invertebrate finding but it’s not far from becoming another thing I do. These photos are not working for me very well on here right now but I want to get this post out. More to come. I have lots of stories to tell and observations to share.