Monday in Nature Sept. 18

That's it! I looked it up, and even the pattern of dots is the same. Many thanks for the help! Do you by any chance know of a good insect identification guide for northern California that you could recommend?

Folks have recommended bugguide.net

Hydrangea

Leslie,

Check with an entomologist at CSU Humboldt, or at nearby Redwoods NP. I assume you're asking about a book. It's hard to find a book that covers all the bugs you're likely to see in any area because there are so many. You might want to look for guides with a more narrow focus, such as one on moths and butterflies. You can also check at the library and look at the publications on the shelf. Some may be out of print, but may still be available through Powell's.

I like bugguide, but it can be time consuming pouring over all the images. Often there is too much information. Also, I'm partial to a field guide in book form.

Leslie,

Check with an entomologist at CSU Humboldt, or at nearby Redwoods NP. I assume you're asking about a book. It's hard to find a book that covers all the bugs you're likely to see in any area because there are so many. You might want to look for guides with a more narrow focus, such as one on moths and butterflies. You can also check at the library and look at the publications on the shelf. Some may be out of print, but may still be available through Powell's.

 

I like bugguide, but it can be time consuming pouring over all the images. Often there is too much information. Also, I'm partial to a field guide in book form.

Laura, I am in agreement with you about real book field guides. However, bugguide.net does have the nice feature where one can post a photo of a an unknown insect and some helpful person will provide an ID.

Bing,

I agree, it is a nice feature. I think both websites and books have strengths and weaknesses. I recently gave a photo workshop on how to take photos to aid in the ID process. the main subjects were fungi and wildflowers, however we found a very nice spider and a caterpillar while in the field. We took advantage of those finds. Who knows, maybe some of those images will appear on bugguide.

I recently gave a photo workshop

I sure wish I lived near enough to take your workshops, Laura!

It'd be extremely cool if there were some way to give tutorials or workshops on Photonet. Not video or streaming, but a series of instructional posts from the leader, with participants posting their results for comment and discussion. Kind of a series of challenges with instruction built in.

Leslie,

We used to have a feature on photo.net called The Monthly Project. It went through a few iterations since I've joined up. For awhile it was pretty much what you describe, but it didn't last very long. Maybe someday it will return, but till then there's nothing stopping anyone from having an informal monthly project. CPC might be a place to do that. If we want to have something purely nature based, then maybe we can do it here in the Nature forum. It's worth exploring. Maybe start another thread in the appropriate forum to gauge interest.

The workshop was a lot of fun. We had a small group with lots of variety in subjects. We also had great weather. After a short slide presentation we went to the field for photos, then returned to review and critique photos. We only went 1/2 hour over!