Strange Encounters by Terri Munson

​While taking pictures of flowers this summer, I have encountered a number of tiny flying and crawling critters.  Some were cute.  Some were creepy.  All were interesting.  There were some I had never seen before in my life and hadn’t a clue what they were. To find out, I visited iNaturalist for the first time. I heard about it during a raptor demonstration from an educator at VINS (Vermont Institute of Natural Science) in Quechee. She encouraged everyone to become Citizen Scientists and contribute data at iNaturalist.org

According to their website, iNaturalist is an online social network of people sharing biodiversity information to help each other learn about nature.  I like the idea of not only learning, but participating. 
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I uploaded some pictures and included when and where I saw the creature.  Within a day, I received a response with an identification and information such as a map of the world and every other sighting of that particular insect.  If you take a picture of an animal, bird, bug, or plant and want to know what it is, I recommend you give iNaturalist a try.  The better the photo, the more apt they are to identify it.  To my embarrassment, I learned that the spider above is actually backwards and hard to id but some kind of orb weaver.  I liked him too much not to include him.  The next one is a crab spider shortly after s/he caught a tasty meal.

Eastern Forest Sedgesitter on an Apple Blossom

Geron Bee Fly on a Black-eyed Susan

Dragonfly on Water Aven

Tachinida Fly on Astilbe

Scudder Bush Katydid on Pink Peony 

Robber Fly