Being a beginner

[ourspecial]

I feel like the past year or two has just been an explosion of new interests. Which is great! The bad part is that I hate that stage where I'm juuuust becoming aware of everything I don't know. With birds I'm starting to get a handle on the most common ones. I know my local crew of brants, and the herons and egrets. I know a catbird because they're my favorites, and the usual suspects at my urban birdfeeder. Don't ask me about gulls or warblers. I think I saw a fish crow once but it was based purely on vibes. At the very least, I can usually look up a bird I don't know.

Plants are a whole other story. Every time I'm out walking the dog my internal monologue is a chain of "what the fuck is that? What the fuck is THAT? That can't be native." And sometimes I stop to take a picture to upload on inaturalist later, but a lot of the time I have to just sit with the mystery. I'm lurking on the native plant gardening subreddit and kind of working backwards from the frequently discussed friends and foes, so now I can tell buckthorn from virginia creeper. I have more familiarity with the things I've (tried to) plant myself, kinda. I'm aware that this initial loss of "plant blindness" is pretty par for the course and I have to be patient, but man.