１）City Nature Challenge(CNC) 2020に関する情報（準備中）
２）CNC 2020-Tokyo について（準備中）
３）iNaturalistへの登録とCNC 2020-Tokyoへの投稿方法（準備中）

It's Week 17 of the iNaturalist World Tour. This week we'll visit Jamaica, the Cayman Islands and Suriname in the Neotropics, Angola and Nigeria in Africa, and Montenegro and Estonia in Europe.

We begin in Jamaica. The top observer @tchakamaura with observations clustered near the town of Portmore just southwest of the capital of Kingston. Two birdwatchers such as @birdernaturalist, who leads WINGS tours in Jamaica, and @guyincognito are the second and third top observers. Other top observers include @zygy, @docprt, @paulbowyer, @woodridgejeff, @stefanmozug, @johnnybirder and @screws

The number of observations per month has been increasing in the last two years peaking in February of this year driven mostly by visits by @guyincognito and @zygy.

@cypseloides is the top identifier and leads in bird IDs. @wayne_fidler leads in insect IDs from nearby Cuba. @tchakamaura leads in plant IDs. @jbroadhead and @guyincognito are other top identifiers.

What can we do to improve iNaturalist in Jamaica? Please share your thoughts below or on this forum thread.

@tchakamaura @birdernaturalist @guyincognito @zygy @docprt @paulbowyer @woodridgejeff @cypseloides @wayne_fidler @jbroadhead

We’ll be back tomorrow in Angola!

These links to the Barcode of Life Database (BOLDSYSTEMS) will take you to images of reference specimens of buprestids collected for genetic barcoding. They can be quite useful if you have one you're unsure of. Be aware these by no means represent a complete list but do show most of the species you're likely to find in South Australia. Many have been submitted by South Australian researcher Peter Lang. I've broken them down by genus, including only those likely to be found in SA but excluding Agrilus because there are so many species, world wide. If I've forgotten a genus that you think should be here let me know.

Cheers,
Ralph

Castiarina
http://v3.boldsystems.org/index.php/Taxbrowser_Taxonpage?taxid=253495

Melobasis
http://v3.boldsystems.org/index.php/TaxBrowser_Taxonpage?taxid=253493

Temognatha
http://v3.boldsystems.org/index.php/Taxbrowser_Taxonpage?taxid=253528

Neocuris
http://v3.boldsystems.org/index.php/Taxbrowser_Taxonpage?taxid=253538

Stigmodera
http://v3.boldsystems.org/index.php/Taxbrowser_Taxonpage?taxid=319376

Diphucrania
http://v3.boldsystems.org/index.php/Taxbrowser_Taxonpage?taxid=299904

For serious birders who regularly observe birds in the wild, ignoring climate change isn't possible. We have been seeing and documenting the effects of a warming climate since at least the 1950s.

https://phys.org/news/2019-10-commentary-birder-effects-climate-day.amp

I just converted our Boyle Outdoor Education Centre project into an iNaturalist collection project. That means that we no longer have to manually add observations to the project. iNat NZ will now automatically add all observations from within the Boyle Outdoor Education Centre general area to the project.

We use the Boyle River area polygon, at https://inaturalist.nz/places/boyle-river-area, to determine which observations automatically go in.

I went home for fall break, and I took a walk in a park in my hometown of Albany, New York called the Crossings. The weather was warm compared to Boston, the temperature being about 70 degrees. There was very light wind. I walked with two of my high school friends, and it was very nice to talk to them while observing autumn leaves and other plants. I saw many different types of plants, from pine trees to milkweeds. There were even mosses on the ground in some dark places of the park. Many of the trees' leaves were turning red and yellow due to it being autumn. There weren't very many wild flowers to observe, and most of the flowers I saw around the park seemed to be planted by humans. There were a lot of people in the park taking walks, biking, and walking their dogs. Overall, this walk was a very calming and enjoyable experience.

Today I went for my fourth nature walk of the year. On my previous three nature walks I went to Edmands Park which is located close to my dorm at Boston College, but since I was home for the weekend I decided to try out somewhere new! This week I walked around the Colonie Town Park which is located just outside of Albany, NY and is nestled along the Mohawk River. It was an afternoon walk, around 4:30, with the temperature coming in just above 60 degrees. On this particular walk I was specifically looking for plants to observe. Right from the start I identified Asters and Allies, which are a type of plant which I identified multiple times back at Edmands Park. As I walked around more I went down by the river and observed some Bulrushes and Cattails, which were cool as they deviated from what I normally observed. Overall it was a great walk and I found many different plants, some of which I had previously encountered, and some that I had never seen before!

This time last month, there were about 8,000 Research Grade observations - now there are over 10,000. Congratulations and thanks to the >1000 identifiers who have been helping with the flowering plants of India!

Добрый день!

К проекту присоединились еще две охраняемые территории:
заповедник "Кивач" - Республика Карелия
https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/zhivaya-priroda-zapovednika-kivach
и Юганский заповедник - Ханты-Мансийский автономный округ
https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/biodiversity-of-the-yuganskiy-state-nature-reserve

My hummingbirds are still here. They're getting nutrients more from the flowers than the feeders.

We end Week 16 of the iNaturalist World Tour in Jordan. The top observer is @cliygh-and-mia with observations clustered around the capital Amman. Several other top observers have observations near Amman such as @khaled5 who works as a tour guide across Jordan. Ecologist @ronf and Jerusalem Botanical Gardens botanist @fragmansapir are in Israel on the map because of all their observations in neighboring Israel, but they each are top observers within Jordan across the country and in places like the Dana Biosphere Reserve, Jordan's largest nature reserve. Severeal other top observers such as @harrisonlee07, @wildchroma, @paolaferruzzi, and @saysay123 have observations clustered near this reserve. @yairur is also in Israel on the map, but their Jordan observations are just along the border with the Golan Hights in the northwest corner of Jordan. Several top observers such as @denis_m have observations clustered in the coastal city of Aqaba.

The graph of observations per month had a peak centered on January 2017 and has been ramped up again in 2019.

@sammyboy2059, based inthe UAE, is the top identifier and leads in bird and mammal IDs. @ronf leads in plant IDs. @cliygh-and-mia leads in insect, herp, arachnid, and mollusk IDs. @ariel-shamir and @artem are other top identifiers lending their expertise from Israel and Armenia respectively.

What can we do to get more people in Jordan using iNaturalist? Please share your thoughts below or on this forum thread.

@cliygh-and-mia @ronf @yairur @fragmansapir @khaled5 @denis_m @harrisonlee07 @sammyboy2059 @ariel-shamir @artem

We’ll be back tomorrow in Jamaica!

This week while at home for fall break I was able to take advantage of a gorgeous fall day and go to a reservation near my house. With fall weather becoming more prominent it was a little chilly walking through the trails in the more woodsy areas of the reservation, but when the sun hit it was a perfect temperature. There weren't a lot of other people when I went out in the morning, but I saw one family on another trail enjoying their time outside the same way I was. On my walk I was able to see tons of different organisms in the densely populated woods.With the coming of colder weather there are a lot of changing leaves, but there are also tons of leaves that haven't changed from their bright green color. I also didn't see very many animals or insects on the nature walk, which I was a little surprised about. I could hear birds in the trees around me, but didn't see anything except for one spider, some ants eating a berry, and a small chipmunk. Overall the experience was very enjoyable and once again relaxing as I just got to spend some time outside on a beautiful day.

I was able to complete this nature walk during fall break in my home town. I did this nature walk at Burnt Hill Park and some of the surrounding streets. Although I have been going to this park since I was about 7 years old to play soccer, there were quite a few things that I had never noticed before. This nature walk allowed me to explore more of this park than ever before and truly appreciate all of the beauty that it had to offer. The weather was perfect, about 60 degrees and sunny, with a slight breeze. I got to see a great deal of biodiversity within the park. All of the leaves were changing colors and many of the plants were in full bloom. There was a wide variety of plants ranging from nonvascular to vascular to flowering. I got to observe trees with their leaves changing colors and the goldenrods in full bloom, as well as some ferns and other types of plants.

To Matthew Adams, Ansel Adams was simply his grandpa.
Growing up in Fresno, California, Matthew would spend time with him during short summer vacations in Yosemite National Park, where his grandfather taught photography workshops.

https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/ansel-adams-yosemite-new-book-california/index.html?fbclid=IwAR3xtsecwvGFnw3uKqhdQWi-GdMuclHrienRC307PzzNAp3Q4TDI-EHVtXs

Over fall break, I went to visit my friend in Nashville and decided to do my nature walk while I was there! We went to a green space next to the model of the Parthenon they have in Nashville and tried to find some wild plants. While I wanted to make sure the majority of my posts were of plants, I had to include one picture of a squirrel because there were so many of them on and around campus! In the park, there were many cool looking trees, including one that I photographed that swept down close to the surface of the water. It was a lovely sunny and 75, the perfect weather to explore nature with a friend in a new city!

This past weekend for fall break I went to visit my boyfriend at Florida Gulf Coast University down in Fort Myers, Florida. Saturday, he took me on a little campus tour and along the way I stopped to take photos of plants that I found. Even though he kept getting annoyed at me cause every-time I saw a plant I'd have to stop and take a photo of it, I really enjoyed our walk through campus. Of course, the weather was beautiful, sunny, mid-80s, and a whole lot warmer than back in the northeast. There were several different plants that had grown around campus, and my personal favorite were the palm trees.

Всем привет! Сегодня МГУ выложил в GBIF базу данных "Онлайн дневники наблюдений птиц". Этот массив данных содержит 306 426 наблюдений птиц, в т.ч. 277 842 точки встреч с территории России. Таким образом, iNaturalist в качестве источника данных о природе России в GBIF отодвинут со второго место на третье, отставая от "Дневников" на 55 тысяч записей. По сосудистым растениям он уверенно занимает второе место. Кое-какая статистика по массивам приведена ниже.

1. Топ-источники по находкам из России в GBIF (все группы) | Top data-donors for Russia in GBIF (all groups)

Место | Rank	База данных | Dataset	Находок | Occurrences
1	Moscow University Herbarium (MW)	622,805
2	RU-BIRDS.RU, Birds observations database from Russ…	277,842
3	iNaturalist Research-grade Observations	222,687
4	Geographically tagged INSDC sequences	195,599
5	EOD - eBird Observation Dataset	171,034
6	A grid-based database on vascular plant distributi…	123,054
7	EBCC Atlas of European Breeding Birds	80,923
8	A global database for the distributions of crop wi…	69,255
9	Arctic Ocean Diversity	62,946
10	Birds of Northern Eurasia	62,749

Источник: GBIF

2. Топ-источники по находкам из России в GBIF (сосудистые растения) | Top data-donors for Russia in GBIF (vascular plants)

Место | Rank	База данных | Dataset	Находок | Occurrences
1	Moscow University Herbarium (MW)	556,446
2	iNaturalist Research-grade Observations	142,225
3	A grid-based database on vascular plant distributi…	123,054
4	A global database for the distributions of crop wi…	69,255
5	Chronicle of Nature - Phenology of Plants of FSE Z…	54,792
6	EURISCO, The European Genetic Resources Search Cat…	51,488
7	MHA Herbarium: Moscow Region collections of vascul…	49,622
8	A grid-based database on vascular plant distributi…	31,669
9	Phenological Center - Plants	24,905
10	A grid-based database on vascular plant distributi…	22,625

Источник: GBIF Поскольку регулярного обновления "Дневников" не планируется, у нашего сообщества появилась новая локальная цель - вернуть себе второе место )) О том, что такое GBIF и как с этим связан проект "Флора России", можно почитать тут.

John W. Laundré Laundré is in the biology department at Western Oregon University. He has studied cougars, wolves and coyotes in the U.S. and is the author of "Phantoms of the Prairie: Return of Cougars to the Midwest."

https://www.roanoke.com/opinion/commentary/laundr-another-hunter-myth-americans-are-losing-touch-with-nature/article_ec3d7282-d164-5d8c-a663-436f2a6f2567.html

John W. Laundré Laundré is in the biology department at Western Oregon University. He has studied cougars, wolves and coyotes in the U.S. and is the author of "Phantoms of the Prairie: Return of Cougars to the Midwest."

https://www.roanoke.com/opinion/commentary/laundr-another-hunter-myth-americans-are-losing-touch-with-nature/article_ec3d7282-d164-5d8c-a663-436f2a6f2567.html

Though we are now well into autumn, butterfly season is not over in Manhattan, and a few finds in particular so far this month demonstrate the value of staying alert.

1. Funereal Duskywing

On Oct. 10, @kasimac took a photo of an unusual-looking butterfly that turned out to be New York state's first record of Funereal Duskywing (Erynnis funerealis), a southern species that is known to wander widely: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/34169876

2. Harvester

Early this month @spritelink photographed a Harvester (Feniseca tarquinius) in Central Park: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/33778666. This species is the only U.S. butterfly with a carnivorous larval stage; the caterpillars eat aphids. Apparently there have been only two other sightings in Central Park in the last 25 years or so.

3. Horace's Duskywing

Not on par with the previous two observations but apparently rather rare nonetheless was a duskywing I photographed in Central Park, now identified as Horace's Duskywing (Erynnis horatius): https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/33932164.

Have fun out there!

Cameroon is the 111th stop on the iNaturalist World Tour. The top observer is @aristidetakoukam with many observations (mostly fish) up and down the coast of Cameroon. @johnnybirder's observations are clustered near Korup National Park while @markuslilje's observations are clustered in the western and northern parts of the country. @irida73ceae has observations near Banyo, @elisebakker near Bouba National Park and @jakob and @markusgmeiner near Lobeke National Park. Other top observers include @muir, @dan_cawley, and @spellecchias. @dan_cawley's observations are near the capital of Yaoundé where he works at the Rain Forest International school.

the number of observations per week has been ramping up since 2017.

@esant is the top identifier and leads in fish IDs. Fish are the top observation category thanks to all the contributions from @aristidetakoukam. As with many African countries, @jakob leads in insects, @johnnybirder in birds, and @marcoschmidtffm in plants as top identifiers. Other top identifiers include @joshuagsmith and @clinton

What can we do to get more people in Cameroon using iNaturalist? Please share your thoughts below or on this forum thread.

@aristidetakoukam @johnnybirder @markuslilje @irida73ceae @elisebakker @jakob @muir @esant @joshuagsmith @clinton

We’ll be back tomorrow in the Jordan!

📣 ეკომონადირეებო, ამასობაში აინატურალისტის 2019 წლის სეზონის ბოლო დავალებაც გახდა ცნობილი და მის შესასრულებლად დრო 10 ნომებრამდე გაქვთ ^_^ 📷

📲 iNaturalist-ის აპლიკაციის საშუალებით გადაიღე ფოტო და პროექტში - "Tbilisi EcoHunter" ატვირთე თბილისში გავრცელებული ეგზოტური მარადმწვანე ბუჩქები🌲

🏞 ფოტომეგზურსაც მალე მოგაშველებთ :3

🌐 ინსტრუქციას კი გაეცანით ლინკზე: http://bit.do/eM4G6~

გისურვებთ წარმატებებს <3

I went on a walk today around a drainage pond behind my home in the woods of New Hampshire. Because of the October weather, the view was spectacular, filled with bright red and mellow orange leaves. However, with the theme of plants, all the plants seemed to be either dead or losing their leaves. I knew that I needed to stay low and take my time to find any surviving plants. Staying closer to the water yielded more success, all while providing a better view. Waling around the base of a connecting river caused me to find a wide variety of animals, like the frog in this post. I also found a rather large spider that caused me to run in the other direction, which sadly means there is no picture of the beast. The weather was great as the sun was out in a cloudless sky, as I roamed comfortably in a t-shirt. It was a great walk that led to me really observe all the plant life. Bonus: I saw a beaver from a distance!

Today, I went to Hammond Pond and the surrounding trail to see if I could spot some fascinating plants. Not going to lie, but I was quite unsuccessful in finding anything interesting. First of all, there were too many boulders around and so I kept getting distracted by climbing them and second of all, I didn't manage to see anything that really popped out. However, I do have some other plants to show from my trip to Houghton Park. I went one week before in the afternoon when it was chilly 53 C°. Surprisingly, I found so many types of berries when I was walking around. I had a really bad urge to eat them, but I think most of them were poisonous. I saw some other flowers and weeds that were colorful and took some pics of those as well. One more thing, I know it's off topic, but I found a ton of fungi today as well! So, I've posted those on this journal just for fun.

After taking photos of this wheke it decided to get in on the act and grabbed my camera. A good thing I had the cord around my wrist as it has a very strong pull. Pulling out my other camera I got this photo showing the wheke with my main camera and the grey cord you can see stretched tight is attached to my other wrist.

As I had someone with me, they took the cord of the camera the wheke had, then I got down to get some photos with the other camera. The wheke initially had the camera upside down.

Once it had sorted out which was was which, it thought to try and take a photo of a human, not a common species seen regularly by the wheke.

However, distracted by it's good looks, it forgot to press the button.

So the first wheke photographer of Otaipango did not get any photos.

Meanwhile in Wellington in April 2000 this wheke stole a camera while it was recording and from that video we can see it is the same species. I am not sure if these 2 are related, and I am not sure if there is any research into kleptomania and octopus. Is it just this species that has a fascination with photography or are there other species as well?

Bats can have rabies, but it is extremely rare for that to impact humans.

The chance of getting rabies from a bat is very small — the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says there are one or two cases a year in the U.S. But bats are the most common source of human rabies in the United States.

https://www.whittierdailynews.com/2019/10/12/how-common-are-bats-with-rabies-and-should-you-worry/amp/

I went for a walk in the woods by Sucker Brook in Oxford, MA today. It was very pleasant outside in the 50's and quiet and calm. There were many of the same species of plants, so my observations have captured some of the abundant types of plant species/what I found most interesting during my walk. I am not certain whether I observed two types snowberries: one fruiting and another non-fruiting. I was also excited to find a moss species because we had talked about them this past week in lecture and it made sense that it was growing in a moist environment near a river. In addition, I noticed that the fern did not have spores on its underside at this point during its life cycle.

Short version: Log into iNaturalist and go here! Click one of the photos to view more details and add or confirm an identification.

Long version: No observation makes it into the Illinois Botanists Big Year (ILBBY) or gets passed on to the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) without at least two identifications. Making IDs is a great way to learn, see the diversity of species found in an area, contribute to science, and get to know other naturalists out there observing.

The Identify page on the iNaturalist website makes IDing really streamlined, especially once you start using the keyboard shortcuts. You can access the Identify page from the website by clicking the Identify link in the main header. Then click any image to view it in the "pop-up" modal in order to view the photos larger, add an ID, or see other details. There is unfortunately no similar quick and easy way right now to add identifications from the apps, so it's recommended to use a laptop or desktop computer.

Check out this useful video tutorial for using the Identify page on the iNaturalist website:

Here is a URL filtered to identify plants in Illinois observed in 2019: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/identify?iconic_taxa=Plantae%2Cunknown&order_by=random&place_id=35&year=2019 I recommend bookmarking it so that it's easy to access. You can use the filters on the Identify page to show exactly the type of observations you're interested in.

Even a broad identification can be really helpful. So if you know it's in the aster family (Asteraceae), but not which species exactly, you can add an ID at family level. That way people looking to help ID observations in that family can find it easier.

Have questions about making identifications on iNaturalist? This Identification Etiquette post answers a lot of common questions. You can also ask below or start a new topic on the iNaturalist Forum.

Today I went for a walk in the conservation area behind my house. I’ve grown up with these woods behind my house and am very familiar with the paths. However, I didn't realize how little I knew about the plants that were back there. Besides the major types of trees - pine, oak, maple, etc. - I had no idea what the plants were called or how diverse the forest was. One plant that I had noticed before but not known what it was was the sassafras tree, pictured below, that has very uniques leaves. I also had never noticed how many different kinds of mosses there were. Although they are not all pictured, I had never noticed the differences between the types of mosses until looking at them more closely on this walk. The weather was almost perfect, partly sunny and ~65 degrees with very little wind.

Congrats ES 193CS + CCBER bioblitzers - this year's bioblitz has more total observations (798) compared to 763 for the 2018 bioblitz! That's an accomplishment especially since it is so dry this time compared to last year and many plants were dormant or annuals hadn't grown yet.

We'll wait to see the number of species observed as crowd-sourced IDs start coming in.