warrenlayberry's Journal
I cannot read, write, or say the word mallard, without my brain calling up the Monty Python cocktail sketch wherein Michael Palin orders a Mallard Fizz from bartender Graham Chapman (tortured duck noises ensue), and later when Chapman asks if he'll have another, Palin demurs slightly and asks for a small one but then stops him. "You haven't got something a little less...eh...ducky, have you?"
Fear of missing observations.
Back in September, I was told I needed to start walking after every meal as a way to help manage my blood sugar. This actually worked out alright as it provided a framework for my renewed interest in iNaturalist. I would upgrade my camera equipment and do a thorough exploration of Esquimalt. It interested me to get a sense of the flora and fauna of the neighborhood. I started mapping out the area in various loops of up to 5 km. I would study my observation map as it filled up and plan new routes accordingly.
It's now December 11, and I am closing in on a thousand observations and three hundred species, and I will likely manage to hit five hundred identifications by the end of the year.
I have covered many of the routes multiple times by now, and I am seeing a lot of the same things at this point. Still, there is always change. Always the possibility of being surprised by something new. September and October were incredibly dry; in November, the rains returned, and with the rains came mushrooms and new crops of licorice ferns. Bufflehead ducks have arrived.
One day at low tide I found a Tidepool sculpin in beneath a rock. Another morning I came across a dead Varied Thrush on a walkway overlooking the Matson Conservation Area.
But today I decided not to take my camera with me on any of my walks. First time in months I let a full day go by without taking a shot. I'm conscious of the possibility of getting weird and obsessive about it and want to avoid that.
But what if I see something on a walk, and I don't have my camera with me?
Answer: I will still have seen and appreciated it. I just won't have photographed it and uploaded it to the site. And that's okay.
https://inaturalist.ca/observations/141027444
https://inaturalist.ca/observations/141470073
