Since I’ve been posting observations to iNaturalist I’ve *definitely* noticed more differences among plants, whether walking around town or hiking through nature. Even just differences between types of weeds.
Link: BBC on “Plant blindness”
Why ‘plant blindness’ matters — and what you can do about it
Of course, I’ve also started noticing differences among local birds more, too. I used to basically classify them as:
– pigeon
– seagull
– crow
– um, small bird?
Plus occasional ducks and geese near the water.
Now I can at least tell pigeons from doves, sparrows from finches (most of the time), ducks from coots, and pick out mockingbirds and starlings. And most of the cranes I’ve seen turn out to have been egrets.
@cs jokes that you know you’re getting old when you start paying attention to birds, and links to What’s the Difference Between Pigeons and Doves? on Mental Floss.
Heh. Fair enough. Though there are particular species found in Southern California that are named doves (such as the white-and-gray mourning doves that perch alone on telephone wires calling “Oo! Oo! Oo!” for what seems like hours on end) or pigeons (such as the gray-and-blue-green common pigeons that tend to flock in groups, perch on ledges and try to steal dropped french fries).