Το Ημερολόγιο του Illinois Botanists Big Year 2019

Eek -- there are currently 5863 observations made in Illinois in 2019 that have no label at all!

Link to help identify: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/identify?iconic_taxa=unknown&order_by=random&place_id=35&year=2019

Ways to help with the backlog:

• Add an ID, even if a "coarse" one like kingdom or family can help bring it to the attention of identifiers of these groups
• Mark as captive/cultivated if appropriate (keyboard shortcut is x
• Use the Frequently Used Responses for issues that commonly pop up

It's a common point of confusion with new users why someone would label an observation with an "obvious" identification like "flowering plant" or "insect", so feel free to point them this way if you get pushback: https://www.inaturalist.org/pages/help#coarse-ids

Why do people keep adding "obvious" IDs like "Plants" or "Fungi"?
This usually happens when you did not add an ID yourself, so your observation is sitting in uncategorized limbo. By adding a coarse ID of "Plants" or "Fungi" these identifiers are making it easier for other people to find your observation. Many experts use our taxonomic filters to focus on their taxon of expertise, so if you post an observation of a plant with no identification, these experts will never find it. People adding coarse IDs are almost always trying to help you get more specific IDs.

Unless you're up for some raucous night botany this evening, it's pretty much pencils down for the 2019 Illinois Botanists Big Year observers!

Help Identify

Observers now have until January 15th, 2020 to upload their observations.

The winners will be announced at the Northeast Chapter of the Illinois Native Plant Society's Annual Chapter Meeting & Book Swap, taking place:
Sunday, January 26th, 2020 from 2PM–5PM at Thatcher Woods in River Forest, IL
More details on that here, including how to RSVP: http://ill-inps.org/northeast-chapter/events

Thanks to so many helpful identifiers who brought our huge backload of unidentified observations from around 6000 down to just a handful.

As of today we have an astounding 39,490 observations that still "Need ID". Can you help with that backlog?

Try filtering by species you're familiar with, narrow in on your county of interest, or only show observations IDed a coarse rank, like "class". Here are the top species that need ID.

General help ID link:

Help Identify

If you want to focus on identifying observations by the top two observers (@wildlandblogger and @dziomber), here's a special link for that.