Diario de driftlessroots

Despite living in a temperate climate all my life I'm just not a winter person. To someone who enjoys nothing more than being outside discovering living things winter is unwelcome down time. Sometimes it feels like it goes on forever but not this year, apparently. We're in the midst of a record-breaking warm spell. Knowing it won't last I've been enjoying being outside more even with the relative dearth of life to observe. Yesterday I went for a long walk in the Lakeshore Nature Preserve in hope of finding a Comma someone had reported seeing the previous day. No luck. The only insect I encountered was a fly that I only managed to get one blurry image of before it flew away.

Today is even warmer so I headed out again, this time to a neighborhood park with Cara Santa Maria in my ears and no particular expectations. I did get to see a few birds flitting around in the trees too far away for an iPhone photo and after spotting a green patch off the trail, I managed to make one observation, Garlic Mustard, a thuggish invasive weed.

Now I'm home again and back chewing through my backlog of observations. I've organized how I do that a little differently and am working more efficiently than before. My goal is to get most if not all of those folders posted and archived before "the season" really kicks in and I start making observations in earnest this year. I'm finding it enjoyable to be looking at images of flowers and insects I won't be seeing again in person for a few months. It also helps to be reviewing/relearning the ones that were new to me. It's a pleasant way to spend the waning winter days, in addition to looking at real estate listings in parts of the world where it never snows. :D