Halfway Done, Almost There

At the beginning of the year I posted about my goal to photograph 1000 species for iNaturalist in Ontario in 2018. At the time, I thought this would be a bit of a challenge. We're now sitting exactly halfway through the year, and I wanted to write a quick post about how it's turning out. Here's my numbers up to June 30:

602 plants
172 birds
53 dragonflies and damselflies
38 butterflies
19 mammals
13 amphibians
12 reptiles
23 other organisms (fungi, fish, various insects, etc.)

For a total of 932 species!

It turns out I seriously overestimated how difficult this would be. I think the main surprise is how many species of plants there are. It doesn't really feel like I've seen over 600 species of plants this year, but the numbers don't lie.

So what's next? I'll probably hit the 1000 species mark in the next week or two depending on how much effort I put in. Past that, I expect I'll finish the year somewhere between 1200 and 1300 species.

Here's some of my highlights for the year so far:

Caribou

Small Round-leaved Orchid

Wolverine - terrible photo but an awesome animal!

American Avocets

Fairy Slipper Orchid

Spiny Softshell Turtle

Redhead x Ring-necked Duck Hybrid

Western Kingbird

Tiger Spiketail

Red Fox (Cross Fox morph)