Initial Goals for 2021
Early 2021 I decided to participate in iNaturalist and specifically in the ILBBY. I have spent a lot of time in remnants in all parts of Illinois, but especially in Palos and Calumet regions of Cook Co. over the last 40 years and I wanted add to the documentation of the diversity and beauty of Cook County south of 87th St (a town line). The plant diversity has been considerably enhanced by ecological restoration efforts of the FPCC and the Chicago Park District over the last 10 years. I wanted to give their efforts a 'shout out'.
I decided not to obscure locations for two reasons. First, locations to within 20m are far more valuable to science than obscured locations and second specific locations show getting off trails and roads really measures the diversity of a natural area. I did visit areas of Cook south of 87th that I had heard about but had not visited ever or within the last 20 years. People need to get off trails and out of parking lots.
These initial goals were expanded with time. The competition inspired me to try to get as many species as possible. Up until 2021 I was only interested in 'weeds' that invaded natural areas. In 2021 I decided to be more interested in garden and urban weeds (Hegewisch is a part of Chicago that has diverse weeds). As I got more interested in the competition I studied the map and saw that the east edge of IL from Vermillion to Wabash Counties had few observations. I knew Tom Hintz was Superintendent of Lincoln Trail SP and I had heard lots about Beadle Barrens so I decided on a trip to SE IL. I also noted that Hancock and Adams Counties (where my wife had served a church in Tioga and I had visited a number of remnants) were also not represented well on iNaturalist. I did not get to west central IL but I plan to write a journal entry on my trip to SE IL.
As well as documenting plant species I already knew about I have learned new species and visited new sites. iNaturalist was a highlight of 2021.
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I know I've turned some heads while skulking around in alleys, train tracks, and parking lots looking for weeds. There is a lot diversity hiding in some of those weedy groups like Amaranthus if you can figure out how to ID them. One thing I want to mention is that there are good numbers of people using iNat to look for species that they haven't seen, especially the rarer ones. I've done that myself a lot. I like my observations to have as accurate of a location as possible, but I also don't want to lead too many people to the most sensitive species and areas. And I've had experiences where people got quite upset about unobscured observations I've made in the past, that includes observations leading to and from sensitive species. I've also had a few people interested in seed poaching contact me asking for the locations to rarer plants that I have obscured the location of. So I generally take a cautious approach regarding which locations I leave open. Luckily, there are channels within iNat that serious researchers can use to obtain the coordinates of obscured observations.
I'm jealous of your trip to SE IL--that's an area I haven't explored yet. Congrats on making the leaderboard! Still working my way through your backlog.
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