I was pleased to notice yesterday that I have contributed over 17,000 observations to iNaturalist - and then I was rather shocked to notice that over 100 people follow me on iNat! I'm shocked because, while I know I post lots of observations of all sorts of species (OK, I admit it, I'm obsessed), I don't think of myself as an expert, so why are you all following me?
Yeah, I have a biology degree and, yeah, I worked for MassWildlife for twenty years, but I'm not an expert in anything. I can never keep Yellow-rumped and Magnolia Warblers straight. Female Common Whitetail and Twelve-spotted Skimmer dragonflies: one has a solid yellow line down the side of her abdomen, one has a series of slanted yellow dashes, but do you think I can remember which is which? No, I cannot. Red and White Baneberry: something about the thickness of the pedicels separates those, but it took me till last week to come up with the mnemonic that wiiiide pedicels means Whiiiiite Baneberry. (Boy, I hope that's correct.)
In short, I don't know everything, and those of you who follow me should remember that I might not always be correct in my IDs. But it gives me so much joy to observe and learn something new almost every week - really, almost every day in the summer - and that is all due to iNaturalist. A couple of days ago, a friend and I were walking in a Black Tupelo swamp nearby and I noticed that some of the tupelo leaves had ruffled edges. (Here's the iNat observation: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/82815564.) While I was sorting and uploading that batch of photos to iNat, I happened to notice that billmac had seen and posted something called the Tupelo Leaf Edge Gall Mite (here's his observation: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/80658794). Lo, that's what I had seen! That's a species I didn't even know existed and I got to see it in the town next to mine. Who needs to go to the tropics when you can go to Petersham? (Well, I do WANT to go to the tropics....)
I've been starting to learn lichens and moths over the past year and I have really appreciated it when other iNaturalists correct my clumsy attempts at IDing a lichen or a moth. And that's why I titled this post what I did: it's only by making mistake after mistake that I learn, and I encourage you to get out there and do the same. Plus, it's FUN!