Archivos de Diario para enero 2019

martes, 08 de enero de 2019

CNC 2019: UK edition (?)

During our holiday travels, @annagypsy and I discussed what we would do with this year's City Nature Challenge. The last two have been great fun--one with a very pregnant @annagypsy and the other with a 1 year-old Lark, who was getting early camping experience--so what of this year?

We decided that we would head somewhere new rather than spend the third year in our home CNC, Washington, DC. Our first thought was San Francisco because they clearly have a lot that we haven't seen before, but that's already a crowded field. Then we considered Bogota--we've worked in Latin America, but not Columbia--then Kuala Lumpur--no Malaysia in our history--just two of the many possibilities. But when we paused to recognize that CNC-ing in completely new lands with a now almost 2 year-old might be better done one step at a time, we thought the UK might be a good place to start. (Plus we've been trying to get my parents to go over there, so this would nudge them a bit.) Both the Portsmouth and London CNCs would offer opportunities to see things we haven't observed before, and we can contribute to these cities' species, observations, and observers totals!

Because of iNaturalist, there is an existing community to help newcomers to an area. But how can we find fellow naturalists who might be interested in and willing to help get us oriented, with whom we might meet up in the field to learn, and whom we might get to know during the CNC? One option is to trawl the 2018 CNC participants for the cities, but that could both be weird ("Why is an ogre writing to me?") and / or cost a bunch of time in missed connections. There isn't (yet) a central clearinghouse to make connections among iNaturalists looking for sharing local knowledge when others visit an area, but maybe there is a need? Could the iNat Google Group be the place (though the audience is much narrower)? We don't know the answer yet, but for now, I'll leave this journal entry here as an open invitation to see if anyone has other ideas about how to connect.

And if you're in southern England, you plan to participate in the 2019 Plymouth or London CNCs, and are open to helping a couple of experienced (albeit in other regions!) naturalists in late April, please get in touch!

Publicado el martes, 08 de enero de 2019 a las 01:26 AM por jacobogre jacobogre | 7 comentarios | Deja un comentario

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