Practicing the habit of paying attention to the small wonders of each day. I'm often watching the world from home, and I'm continually amazed at the variety of life even in my own backyard.

On identifications
Most of my identifications are of "Unknowns" - observations uploaded with no ID at all. I attempt to get them as closely IDed as I can, in hopes of making them visible to specialists who use filters when they ID.

This involves a certain amount of intuition about what the intended focus of an observation is, if not explicitly described in the notes. Usually I look for what's interesting and close to the center of the photo. I roughly follow the graphic design principle of guessing that people will be most interested in something moving, colorful, high-contrast, or different in scale from its surroundings.

I use the computer vision (CV) suggestions extensively, with awareness of the limitations and drawbacks of machine learning as a tool. In addition to considering visual similarity and range maps, I'll often choose a higher-level ID the CV suggestions all have in common, such as family or genus. I try to make it clear when I've clicked a CV species suggestion vs entering the name manually (for species I'm confident IDing).

I do not identify fungi beyond phylum level. CV is all over the map for fungi, I don't have the necessary skills to do it manually, and the potential risks of misidentification are too high for my risk profile.

All of which is to say, I'm inevitably going to make mistakes! Please tell me if I've picked the wrong organism in your photo or made an ID mistake. I try to stay on top of my notifications and make corrections as appropriate. I also love to learn from specialists about what details make a solid ID.

Current projects:

• Quick, high-level IDs for unknowns in the midwest USA (broadly defined)
• More involved IDs for unknowns in Dane County, WI and surrounding areas
• Daily observations to the extent that time and weather permit (As of 10/2024 I have roughly a 3 month backlog of observations to upload)
• Observations from my photo history

https://www.inaturalist.org/stats/2023/gmzelle
https://www.inaturalist.org/stats/2024/gmzelle