It’s really important to identify and keep track of the living things around us to help scientists protect and conserve animals and their homes. Use one of the following ideas to help identify the plant or animal you have found!
Ask Family & Friends
Include your family and friends in your Backyard Biologist explorations to help identify the plants and animals you find! Even if they are not entirely familiar with the plant or animal you have found, discussing your findings can help narrow down your search. And who knows?! You may even gather enough information to identify what you’ve found!
There’s an App for That!
The Seek app by iNaturalist is free, user-friendly and will quickly and easily identify many living things! Using your device’s camera, the Seek app will draw on its extensive database to analyze the plant or animal centered on the screen. It will then provide the name of the species, as well as additional information about it. You can also connect an iNaturalist account to the app and upload your observations to citizen science projects!
Find out more about the Seek app here: https://www.inaturalist.org/pages/seek_app
Use a Field Guide
When it comes to identifying local plants and animals, guidebooks can be a great resource! Hard-copy nature and field guides can easily be found at your local book store or library. There are also many plant and animal identification guides available online, like the ones provided below!
PLANT
Government of Canada- Tree Guides
https://tidcf.nrcan.gc.ca/en/trees/identification/broadleaf
https://tidcf.nrcan.gc.ca/en/trees/identification/conifers
INSECT & SPIDER
Identification Guides by Province
https://www.insectidentification.org/insects-by-state-listing.php
REPTILE & AMPHIBIAN
Canadian Herpetological
Society
http://canadianherpetology.ca/species/index.html
BIRD
Canadian Wildlife Federation (CWF)- Wild About Birds
https://cwf-fcf.org/en/resources/downloads/booklets-handouts/poster_birds_en.pdf
https://cwf-fcf.org/en/resources/downloads/booklets-handouts/poster_birds2_en.pdf
The Cornell Lab of Ornithology- Bird ID
https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/
Don’t forget to submit the name and a photo of your identified plant or animal on the Earth Rangers App to earn your Backyard Biologist Mission badge!
We have rose bushes and chickens in our garden 🙂
I found ants, lady bugs, spiders, a blue jay, a worm, and a lots of plants…including a raspberry bush…yum!
I found ants and worms Beatles inspired in my mom‘s garden It was a daddy long leg
I found bees, Bluejays, Stellar Jay, a northern flicker, lady bugs daffodils Pine tree
In my moms I found a Caterpillar on the parsley!
I’m gonna make a notebook and draw the things I find, than I can use it as a reference! 😀
I found birds and lilies
We found a butterfly, bee, birds, magpie, eagle, bugs, water beetle. Mosquitoes and a gopher
Found gopher, birds, bugs and water beetle
Hi I am Icandoit it is so nice to meet you guys and my name is Anna what’s your name and your user name well I hope you guys learn a lot of things well I’m new here so have a great time learning a lot of new things