Diario del proyecto Denton Wild

We thank Jamie Baxter-Slye @baxter-slye for sending this post our way. - RRC

Are you ready for the Sept 6th - 12th DFW iNat Challenge, physically distant style?

Hi Everyone! Sam Kieschnick, Texas Parks and Wildlife DFW Urban Wildlife Biologist, has created the Fall 2020 DFW Socially Distant iNat Challenge, starting 12:00am September 6th to 11:59pm Sept 12th.

https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/fall-socially-distant-bioblitz-dfw-urban-ecosystem

Here is Sam's message:

Like many of you, I've missed out on doing some public bioblitzes all this year. Nonetheless, nature's still out there, just waiting for us to appreciate it and document it. I hope you all have taken some time to escape outside to look for bugs and birds and whatnot.

Well, in the meantime, let's have a little fun competition! This is sorta like a local scale city nature challenge -- only just in the DFW area! What area of DFW can document the most species, make the most observations, and have the most engagement?!?

First of all, you don't have to be a master naturalist to participate! You don't have to join any projects. This umbrella project is composed of the 6 master naturalist chapter areas. Observations made in these areas are automatically added to both that project and this umbrella project. Again, you don't have to be a master naturalist to participate, but if you are a master naturalist, hopefully you can get some volunteer service time for your participation.

So, observations of wild organisms made between September 6 and 12 will count. At the end of this time, I'll put together a little report and will highlight some of the cool finds. Also, each day there will be a "daily challenge" -- I've got a list of 7 things to look for, and you get extra respect points for documenting the daily challenge organism/interaction. :) Respect points are worth their weight in gold!

Hope you will participate! And which area do you think would have the most observations/species/participants?!? :)

Here are the general "rules" for the bioblitz:

Observations must be made between September 6 - 12.
So, one second after midnight on Sept 6 to one second before midnight on Sep 12... Sunday - Saturday. 7 days of bioblitzing!

Observations must be made within these 15 DFW counties: Collin, Cooke, Dallas, Denton, Ellis, Hood, Hunt, Johnson, Kaufman, Navarro, Parker, Rockwall, Somervell, Tarrant, and Wise.

Where you make the observation will determine which project it's added to. Although, ALL observations are added to this umbrella project, so they all count.

Observations must be of wild (not cultivated or captive) organisms. So, no captive pets or cultivated plants will count. It's ok to observe these, but recognize that the project won't catch them.

Observations need to have a photo or sound. Without these, the observation just stays casual grade. We'd like to see some sort of evidence of your observation.

Observations need to be uploaded before the 18th. Try your best to get the uploaded sooner! The sooner you get your uploaded, the more likely they'll be ID'ed for the results given on the 18th.

ID as many of the observations as you can!

Start with ID'ing your own observations, and then, please, help out others with their observations. You learn a lot in the process!

No need to join any project or be a master naturalist or anything like that.

Observations that meet the above categories will automatically be added to these projects. :) I really hope however that Master Naturalists will curate a lot of the observations made by all.

Respect points for the daily challenges! Each day, there will be a daily challenge of something to observe. Try to get these -- Sam will respect you. :)

Tell others about this!

The more engagement, the more folks involved, the more folks engaging with nature. That's a big deal. Also, at the end of this, Sam will write up a detailed report of the relevancy of this sort of event as the results are announced on September 18, 2020.

You MUST have FUN. Required. Demanded. Spend time engaging with nature during this time!

Posted by baxter-slye baxter-slye, September 03, 2020 03:11 PM