When I was a kid, my dad gave me a set of pocket survival books the size of my hand. Two were about edible plants, and I was hooked immediately (even though I couldn't find most of them, seeing as how the book was written out east and I lived in the Pacific Northwest).

I'm not a scientist at all, I work in the field of writing. But I've been studying plants native to the Pacific Northwest since I was a teenager, starting of course with the edibles (thanks Dad). A recent trip to the Sonora with real naturalists taught me the value of learning about the mammals, fungi, birds, insects, and amphibians that live around me too; I'm just barely scratching the surface with them, though. I suspect this app, and process, will help.

This is the first social media platform that has attracted me on a personal level - ever. Citizen science? Species ID and observation? Please count me in!