היומן של gcwarbler

During a recent bioblitz at the Timberlake Biological Field Station, some of us were discussing how to access older scientific literature which might be available in digital form online. I'll have more to say in a follow-up post about my favorite archive, the Biodiversity Heritage Library,
https://biodiversitylibrary.org
https://about.biodiversitylibrary.org
but I thought I'd take a moment to list some other potential online archives which may be useful. Here are some I've discovered. There certainly may be others:

Google Scholar
https://scholar.google.com/schhp?hl=en
A good starting place. The results might link to free pdf downloads, pay sites, or only literature citations without digital access, but it's pretty thorough--often too thorough, bringing up distantly related or unrelated titles. You can test it by searching for your favorite plant or animal like "Calyptocarpus vialis", "Jalisco Petrophila", or even a location like "Timberlake Biological Field Station".

JSTOR (a part of ITHAKA)
https://www.jstor.org
Accessing articles through their front-end search engine may involve some cost, but JSTOR downloads are available for free through many/most academic institutions (such as University of Texas, Austin Community College, etc.) and even Austin Public Library (with a library card).
https://www.jstor.org/institutionSearch?redirectUri=%2F

The Hathi Trust Digital Library
https://www.hathitrust.org
https://www.hathitrust.org/about
https://www.hathitrust.org/community

PubMed Central
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/
Less focused on natural history, per se, but includes many relevant journals. Their Full-Text Archive Search can bring up some surprisingly useful results:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/journals/

SORA (Searchable Ornithological Research Archive)
https://sora.unm.edu
A great resource for searching journals like The Auk, Condor, Wilson Bulletin, and a growing list of other bird-oriented publications.

Please feel free to add links to useful resources you are aware of.

I just glanced at the project page for Austin's City Nature Challenge 2022 and was tickled when I saw the leading species for the first day of the event: Rain Lily!

Just like 95% of Texas, much of the Austin area is in moderate to exceptional drought, although the region is split about half and half in and out of the drought areas:

It was only a brief passing storm system last Monday that prompted the appearance of the rain lilies ... but we'll take 'em!