Diario del proyecto Erie MetroParks

Project Update - March 2023

We had four new members join the project in March, probably helped by our Citizen Science Month Challenge (more on that below). Welcome to @speckjr05, @lizsatterfield, @wolfpack211, and @steamqueen. If you know of anyone that may be interested, please direct them to our page! The more people that join us, the more aware we can all be about what wildlife can be found within our parks!
 
It is now officially spring, and that shows in the statistics. Collectively, we are spending more time outside, and we are seeing more wildlife all around us! Let’s look at some of the updates from our iNaturalist Project this past month.
 
The project increased from 6808 to 7017 observations (+209), 1659 to 1679 species (+20), while the number of observers increased from 155 to 162 (+7).
 
Our number of Research Grade observations increased from 4442 to 4686 (+244). This equates to a Research Grade percentage of 66.78% (up from 65.24%).
 
In total, there were 200 observations added to the project within March 2023. The observations include 93 birds, 26 amphibians, 20 mammals, 19 plants, 18 insects, 6 fungi, 4 snails, 2 fish, 1 reptile, and 1 spider.
 
Of these, there were 102 species recorded. Eastern red-backed salamander was the species observed the most (14 occasions), followed by turkey vulture, bald eagle, and northern saw-whet owl (each observed on 7 occasions).
 
The observations came from 11 observers. The top 5 observers were @martyndrabik (100), @eriemetroparks (39), @mikehensley75 (38), @briarrose777 (6), @cherylkilmer (4) and @jenniferc3 (4).
 
The top observations of the month include:
American white pelican - https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/150728243
Eastern comma - https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/151861203
Velvet foot - https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/150923526
Marbled salamander - https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/152528128
Spring peeper - https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/152047208

As stated above, Erie MetroParks has a Citizen Science Month Challenge. Participants are challenged to submit as many iNaturalist observations within the parks during April as possible, with a chance to win some amazing prizes. More details can be found here: https://eriemetroparks.org/citizensciencechallenge/
 
Thanks to all for contributing to the project!
 
~ Martyn