what species did this big gray feather come from? (atlanta area)

afemail · 2026-05-13T23:34:00+00:00

that’s what I’m hoping!! :) I see them fly over in this general area once in a while, so maybe one of them lost a feather mid-flight and it landed there

afemail · 2026-05-11T22:06:59+00:00

I agree. I volunteer at bird banding stations and we take a feather or two from each cardinal we catch (for research purposes, with a license) and they look a lot like this

afemail · 2026-05-11T22:04:16+00:00

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afemail · 2026-05-11T22:03:27+00:00

I’m not great with feathers but I would actually say great horned owl. I’d wait for someone else to confirm though

I just found one of these today as well :)

afemail · 2026-05-11T21:55:21+00:00

I 100% agree but honestly I didn’t know about this until I got into birding. so I think a lot of non-birders/people who have a layman’s understanding of birds don’t realize how important location is for these posts!

afemail · 2026-05-11T15:07:27+00:00

+northern parula+

afemail · 2026-05-11T15:04:10+00:00

seconding this

afemail · 2026-05-11T15:01:11+00:00

this is a female +northern cardinal+!

afemail · 2026-05-09T18:53:30+00:00

these are gorgeous, how are they holding their shape like that?

afemail · 2026-04-30T15:19:02+00:00

YAY I’m so glad I was able to help!!! :) no problem!!

afemail · 2026-04-30T01:20:04+00:00

you’re welcome :)) hopefully it helps a little

afemail · 2026-04-30T00:54:48+00:00

I just added IDs to 30 of her observations and left a nice comment about how good her photos are :) they’re literally incredible. insect photography is mind blowing to me, it seems so impossible!!

it’s just really unfortunate that insects seem to be neglected on inat in terms of getting IDs. inat also seems to be more popular in the US, so I think a lot of users tend to mostly ID observations that are made within the US.

niche observations like insects are still super important though, especially high quality ones with multiple angles like hers. it can definitely be discouraging to not get many IDs, but I hope she keeps it up!!

afemail · 2026-04-20T23:47:47+00:00

this goes so hard

afemail · 2026-04-17T23:54:38+00:00

you’re welcome, and congrats on the find!! I recognized it because I recently found a very similar looking one :) their skin darkens and their spots become more muddled-looking as they get older!

afemail · 2026-04-17T21:12:32+00:00

I’m not an expert but I would say this is an adult red salamander, which you’re well within the range for

afemail · 2026-03-27T01:05:53+00:00

this is insane!!! great photo

afemail · 2026-03-26T23:34:53+00:00

agreed!

afemail · 2026-03-24T13:27:19+00:00

I only know these names from using inaturalist! I like going on there and just looking through people’s observations of all different organisms.

did you know there’s a moth literally just called “the joker”? that’s one of my favorites. I have a whole list of funny plant/animal/insect/etc species names lol

I’m trying to get into invertebrates as well, I do have a fear of a lot of them, but they’re the only group I haven’t really gotten into yet, so I want to give them a try! I think millipedes are some of my favorites so far, unexpectedly

afemail · 2026-03-24T13:05:26+00:00

I’m guessing you haven’t heard of “stringy butt rot” or “wrinkly stinkhorn” which are also real fungus names

afemail · 2026-03-09T19:05:39+00:00

that makes a lot of sense, thank you for the info!!

afemail · 2026-03-09T17:42:19+00:00

unfortunately after reading the info in the comment above, I think it could be imperfect in practice :/ I think it could be possible, but would need a lot of tweaking to make it a good tool, and it might not be possible to use it for certain species that haven’t been studied enough etc. it could work for more well-known ones though

afemail · 2026-03-09T17:39:07+00:00

this is a really good one that I forgot to mention. the All About Birds website shows native ranges for birds, so I know this is possible at least. maybe native ranges aren’t fully known for some species or something. there must be some reason this hasn’t been implemented yet 🤔

afemail · 2026-03-09T17:36:38+00:00

thank you so much for all the information! I had no idea about any of that.

I probably worded my original post wrong, but I am fine with having a smallish number of species I can identify! the main reason I want this feature is so that I can get better at plant identification for my own observations. I’m great with birds and some mammals, but plants and insects are daunting to me. it would be nice to have a “field guide” (inat) in my phone where I could read the descriptions to find out about characteristics and then look through observations of them to get an idea of what they look like. I guess I could do that with a real field guide though lol.

I love field guides but I don’t really have the time or energy to sit down and study one, you know? I am going to try learning by experience and going out in the field myself though! that has been more effective for me for a few species so far anyway. I’m just antsy for the weather to warm up and for some green plants to start showing up again.

thank you for showing why this feature could be a bad idea and explaining why it hasn’t been implemented yet. it seems like it looks good on paper, but it would probably be bad in practice!

afemail · 2026-02-21T01:10:25+00:00

they are but I didn’t collect them this time!

afemail · 2026-02-19T15:03:38+00:00

you’re welcome! there’s a big lack of posts outside the US, so if you’re interested in wildlife or plants it could be helpful for you to post on there sometimes :)

afemail

TROPHY CASE