Most of my friends pull out their phones even in the middle of the woods. I tend to roll my eyes and tolerate this. Merlin and PlantNet are certainly useful. But I grew up on field guides and conversations with more experienced naturalists. Instant AI-enabled possible-answers feel more like junk food info to me. That said, my favorite "field guide" recently has been Wikipedia. I don't usually look stuff up while in the field. I do what I've always done: make notes, maybe consult a book if I have it, then come home and do some searching. I Wikipedia from my couch, not from the field. I like Wikipedia for looking up various species, though, since it tends to be pretty thorough. For example, my backyard groundhog is back. He (she?) abandoned the burrow last summer when the fence was put in. Too much construction in the neighborhood, I guess. But they're back now, and now both the entrance and peephole appear to be on my property. I looked them up because I wasn't sure how much or when to…
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