Less than three weeks to the beginning of this year's Nature Challenge April 29 to May 2

Every annual Nature Challenge has three goals:

  • add more observations
  • find more species
  • get more people observing

Last year in Manitoba there was a single Nature Challenge event in the Winnipeg Region. This year there will be two events - the second Winnipeg Region event and the first one held in Brandon! @hipstermama is taking the lead out west. Here's some links for their event. I encourage you to help them get their event off to a great start.

In 2021, 63 observers took part in the Winnipeg Region event, making 2,432 observations of 423 species. More than half the observers involved last year made fewer than 5 observations each. I know there is room for improvement there - as the two observers who made the highest number of observations made over 1500 observations between them. If most people make 10 observations each instead of 5, it will make a big difference.

Here's what I did last year and how it worked out for me. Perhaps it will spark some ideas for you whether you are a new or experienced iNaturalist observer.

  1. I planned with my friends and family that those four days would be about making observations. The usual weekend chores got done ahead of time or delayed till later - and I took vacation days for the Friday and Monday. (A more moderate plan might just be to plan to go outside for an hour or so to collect observations.)
  2. I did not go alone. My friends and family are very used to enabling me - they drive me places, help me spot things and generally make the outings enjoyable. We bounce ideas off each other to identifying what we have seen and where else we might find things.
  3. I went to several different locations each day, making observations in a variety of habitats, especially ones where I knew there were organisms that might not otherwise be observed. The boundaries of the Winnipeg region event extend far beyond the city limits and include many public natural areas. Last year many of these locations were not visited or only visited briefly by a few observers. I wrote a series of journal posts for last year's event looking at each map square - beginning near the centre and spiraling out toward the edges - here's a link to the first one.
  4. When I started with iNaturalist, I did use my phone to photograph observations - but now I use an Olympus Tough TG-6 which has the ability to tag the photos with gps coordinates and has the plus of being able to get wet or be dropped without breaking. I was always running out of space (and charge) on my phone but with the camera I bring extra batteries and an extra memory card:)
  5. I upload my observations when I get home. Network connectivity across the region varies wildly and seeing something I want to photograph while waiting for the previous observation to upload drives me nuts - so I sit with my laptop in my nice warm house with a high-speed connection and upload everything after I get home, instead of in the field.

  6. I check the website to see what else is happening to get new ideas for places to look for organisms. Here's the aggregating links for this year...

Please feel free to add in the comments any questions or suggestions for participants in this year's event.

Publicado el 10 de abril de 2022 a las 02:20 PM por marykrieger marykrieger

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