January 10 - Comparing 2022 to Recent
Survey Observations by Month 2017-2022
Here's a chart of total observations by month for years starting in 2017 (as new statewide survey). The 2019 months of Jul, Aug, and Sep are the highs. The 2021 months of Mar, Apr, and Nov are the highs. 2022 established new highs for May, Jun, and Oct. Note that these number are much higher than any years prior to 2017.
Other than Mar, all the 2022 months were above the 5 year averages. Jun and Jul are peak months.
Survey Trends
Here's a chart, once again, on the years starting with 2017. These are metrics related to observations vetted to species. 2022 looks pretty good. Once you hit 88 Counties for a year, it's done! Note that for scaling purposes, the Observation count is divided by 100 (peak over 35,000), User count is divided by 10 (peak over 1,000). #Days is the number of unique days observations were submitted.
Trend is up (over 5 year average) on Observations. 2022 was above the average on Users (1,036), but below the 2020 peak (1,164). Trends are basically even on species, counties, days. We are holding around 135-140 species/year - the first 90 are easy - getting over 140 takes work and luck. 2021 had warm Apr and good days in Nov through the 20th - providing 18 more days with observations than 2022.
Comentarios
You would think that 2019 and 2022 (the years with the highest number of observations) would also have either a significantly greater number of Users or significantly greater number of Days observed or both. But they don't. Maybe those two years had better weather for Odes. Something was different those two years.
One of the fascinating aspects of oda observation for me is not just the changes in patterns of some species locally, but perturbations and movements in those patterns synced across hundreds of miles. It was clear that weather brought the season to a halt in early November last year, but what explained the growth in Great Blue Skimmer sightings? Observation volume spiked in 2019, dropped way down in 2020, and has been climbing back up. There were more observations last year than in 2019, and they are quite broadly distributed across the state.
On our Coshocton property, I find relatively wide variation in Orange Bluet flight season. On our property, they are only found in our half acre fish pond, which is in a deep wooded north-facing valley. I can reliably find the species in much sunnier locations several miles farther north, weeks after their disappearance in my front yard. Usually, the species peters out in late June. In 2020 I had an observation on 16 Aug, this past season, had several August sightings, with the latest on the 20th. I suspect that those 2 years must have had an additional cohort that emerged in early Aug. In most years, either that larval cohort didn’t exist at all, or its emergence pattern was different. I’m thinking that in some years they have more reproductive cycles than in others.
Some of these patterns are local, some are regional, and some probably impact multiple species simultaneously. If we knew what to look for, or asked the AI to look for patterns, we might find that the same patterns are impacting other families of insects, birds, and even plants.
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