On our way to my friend Nicole's wedding. (More pictures to follow, or surf over to cottonmanifesto for hers.)


In other news, I keep getting comments to my 365 Urban Species posts, from two years ago. I like that people are still discovering it, but I'm noticing a certain consistency within these comments: Mostly they are anonymous, which always bothers me. I know that if someone comments who isn't on livejournal it will call them anonymous even if they aren't trying to be sneaky, but I wish these people would sign their comments. I think the least a person can do, if they are trying to communicate with you, is identify themselves.

There are two types of comments: The kind where someone says "Eek! I just found one of these!" (usually on the woodlouse spider post); sometimes these people want to know how to keep the creature from their house, or sometimes they ask a natural history question that's answered by the post itself. The other kind, of which, distressingly, I received two yesterday, are the "You identified this incorrectly" ones. (Always on a fungus or plant entry.) I should be happy to get these, since (if they are correct) I learn something from them, but they do sting a bit.

I'm particularly nagged by my wood ear entry, describing a common wood-decay mushroom that you can find even in the winter in Boston. Except that it appears that what I've been finding and photographing may not be Auricularia at all, instead an unrelated but lookalike mushroom called Exidia. What bugs me is that I've passed on this misinformation to many others, on nature walks as well as online. I'll have to sit down with my field guides and study the differences, so that I can confidently say whether we have both varieties in our area, or just the one that isn't the one I've been telling everyone we have.

I made at least four mistakes that I know of, in the course of the project. Not typos (good god there are probably a few of those lurking about) but identification errors and one error of omission. These I would like to fix, for the sake of having the project feel more finished, and in case I publish it in some form or another. I'm letting you all know, because I feel like I should, basically, but also to let the people who caught the misidentifications know that I'm not ignoring them out of spite. Also, if you are seriously nerdy, you could try to work out what the problem with my identification was, and what the proper identification should be. Also, if you caught a mistake earlier, but didn't want to embarrass me by pointing it out, now's the time to go ahead and shame me. I can take it--perhaps I'll learn something.

The ones I know about:

#170: Vetch
#286: Chondrostereum purpureum
#359: American Holly
(The error of omission. I photographed only European holly, mistaking one variety for American holly.)
#364: Boxwood

I'll let you know when these are fixed!

You may have noticed I posted twice yesterday. That's because I'm going to see my parents out in the Pioneer Valley today, and I won't be bringing the computer. I will be bringing the camera, and I'll head up to Springfield (the country's biggest Springfield, mind you, at about 150,000 people) to see if I can find some species to finish up the year, like maybe a rat. If you live near Springfield and know where there are rats, maybe you could make some noise and scare them into the street so I could photograph some. See you Monday!

A couple people have asked "What will you do when the 365 days are over?"

Good question. I've given this quite a bit of thought, and haven't come up with a perfect answer yet. First off, a second 365 urban species simply isn't possible. In January, in Boston, there is so little life available, and I've done so many of the winter species already. If I started in May, no problem. I've skipped a few things I didn't mean to (white mulberry, for example) and there is so much in the summer that it's pretty easy. So unless I'm paid to search and research full time, or paid to move to a milder climate, it ain't gonna happen.

Then there's the whole idea of posting EVERY SINGLE DAY. On the one hand--it's great! Everyone knows that it's coming, and it's good for my discipline, and it's an effective way to build an audience, and so on and so forth. But it is driving me insane. I fantasize about NOT doing an entry sometimes, how delightful it would be to go a full day without touching a computer, or thinking about what species I'm going to do today. I'm thinking maybe I'll do something weekly, or several days a week maybe. At least give myself weekends off or something.

I also will not limit myself to the "species" concept. I've spent too much energy fretting about whether the crane fly or the ground beetle or the vetch or the fungus is precisely the species I've said it was. Sometimes species is important, usually not. But there's value to that arbitrary limit--it creates focus.

So I'll ask you, the readers (Wow, almost 600! Hey it was 600 yesterday; where'd you go?? Afraid of a little fungus, huh?)

What do you suggest I do when the 365 days are up?

I perched myself on a stump in the park for a moment, and felt a little bite. I looked down and saw that the stump was teeming with thousands of tiny ants. I lept up and brushed myself off in a panic, as several of them took turns biting me. Of course, I was thinking (along with "AAAGH! I'm being bitten by ants!!") "I wish I knew what species they are."