היומן של gulfcoasttoad

I like the idea of a nature journal--I've done it before in a non-systematic fashion, which is to say, mingled with journal entries on other topics. I joined iNaturalist yesterday afternoon, made 3 observations and 4 IDs (not including my own observations). I included a note with each of my observations, so that each observation with text stands as a mini-journal entry, in a way. Because this Journal is only available on the website, not on the app, most of what I write about what I see will be attached to each picture entry, rather than "journaled" here in the Journal on the website. Fortunately I can attach observations to a journal entry and that, at least will ensure that some observations end up in this Journal, though I suspect I may fall behind in keeping up with this.

Some interesting notes that I ferreted out after I had posted my observations: the wasp is most likely female, a lone female founder of the colony. I found some stats online that indicated her success rate, being solo in early spring (unusually cool weather lately, so it feels more like "early spring") was less than colonies with multiple female founders or later getting established. I also found out that Carolina Wrens are among the birds that predate on this wasp and larvae. Ironically, we have these wrens in the yard and they're the reason I decided to see about getting seed into the old feeder again--not realizing that they primarily eat insects! (Until now I've rarely seen them here, so I hadn't looked further than IDing them.) They are much more conspicuous than previous years, so I think there many be more of them than the usual infrequent sighting. And of course, there are the vast colony of squirrels who live in the trees, mostly in the tree with the feeder, though it's been empty for a couple of years now. It will be interesting to see how things shake out with the wasp colony, the wrens, and the squirrels. Smart money is probably still on the squirrels. :D

A quick belated update on some home observations. Mama wasp hasn't been around lately, but nest has several capped cells. Now I'm waiting to see if the Carolina Wrens find them. 😮 (See previous post.) Also, I just missed getting a hummingbird a few days ago; iNaturalist was both the reason for the sighting and the reason I didn't get the observation. I'd been trying to get a pic of a spinybacked orbweaver who had built a web way above the entryway. The phone camera had trouble locking onto it, and the sky behind it played hell with the lighting, so I finally dragged a stepchair out and climbed up to see if I could get a better angle for a decent picture. After several tries, I did manage to get it. I climbed down and while I was entering data for spinyback orbweaver, I heard this very loud buzzing sound. I looked up & was eye to eye with hummingbird! Tried desperately to back out of app to get to camera but hummingbird was gone before I could get to camera app! (Yes, I can take pics within the app, but the problem was that I tried to back out of a partial unsaved observation of the spinyback, which the app wouldn't let me do without either saving or discarding.) I stood perfecly still for a while, but the hummingbird didn't come back, though I got another spider while waiting. 😁 A twitchy little thing that blended very well with the brickwork. I wouldn't have seen it at all if it hadn't moved, or hadn't moved so fast. (A jumping spider species, I think. Waiting on ID confirmation.)

Actually I'm waiting on a lot of ID confirmations. iNaturalist has been so far as unhelpful in IDing things as it's been helpful. Right now I've got more without confirmed ID than I do with ID, including a few observations in which I couldn't even hazard a guess about what I was looking at. I would probably do better if I specialized in particular taxa; then eventually I'd end up with some connections to people who also specialize in the same things, and so get more confirmed IDs, learn things, and become a better observer and IDer myself. But I'm interested in everything to some extent. OK, maybe not everything, but I am curious about things I see in the natural world. I want to know what I'm seeing so I can find out more. I do know enough plants, both native and garden, that I can contribute an ID to some of them. I make a point to periodically click Explore for my location (which is Harris County, TX for most observations) and look over the photos for any not marked RG (Research Grade) to see if I can contribute anything. Sometimes for unknown I can contribute a phylla or family or genus, leaving a more precise ID for someone more knowledgeable, but at the same time being of some help to my fellow users. I'm surprised at how many really common plants are posted with no ID, but no one knows everything; a birder may be great with birds and trees, but not with spider ID. A pollinator specialist might not know the names of birds that aren't pollinators. Every ID represents a bit of knowledge shared. Since the web of life on this planet is complex, filling in the pieces--all the little pieces--can be very important to the big picture.

Yesterday was Earth Day and I spent part of it at the Houston Arboretum and Nature Center. Besides being a great place and a great day for a nice long walk in the woods, this was sort of a trial run for the City Nature Challenge next weekend. On Earth Day I logged 37 observations and uploaded 63 photos! The Arboretum has a number of nature hikes scheduled for the City Nature Houston Challenge; I don't know yet if I will participate in them or observe elsewhere, but I wanted to see what it would be like to blitz a bunch of field observations, and hone my iNaturalist app skills. One of the first things I learned was that it goes a lot faster if you use the camera within the app, and that it automatically added location (which the app hadn't been doing before), sometimes specifying exactly which trail I was on! Those two things made the app tremendously faster and easier to use.

I tried to get as much diversity as possible, but plants (and fungus) are my natural "go-to" for photos at the Arboretum, and it was an unusually chilly damp morning so there just wasn't a whole lot of creatures out and moving. I saw birds I couldn't get a picture of, and ants I couldn't get the phone's focus to lock onto, and a Gulf Fritillary that zipped across the trail by the meadow so fast it was out of range in the blink of an eye. Even the plants had a hard time staying still for photos as a cool wind gusted through some locations. I added all the observations to the Houston Arboretum and Nature Center Project here on iNaturalist, in the hope that someone monitoring the project would be able to provide IDs since all observations were on trails and I don't think I saw anything particularly rare or unusual---or for that matter, inconspicuous (except for the ladybeetle which was on the underside of the leaf). The hardest part of this trial run for the challenge was deciding what to take a picture of. At any given spot there were dozens, if not hundreds, of species within a 360 degree view. I went for easily ID'd highly conspicuous wildlowers, and a random assortment of things I simply did not know with any degree of precision, which I thought it likely that someone else familiar with the Houston Arboretum trails would know. The visitor center always has a sampling of plants, especially blooming plants, in small vases with the genus and species labeled. I used that to ID a number of flowers, but otherwise relied on suggestions from iNaturalist, or marked Unknown. One frustrating thing was that none of my observations were uploaded real time; they were all marked "waiting to upload" until after we left the Arboretum. So there could be no communication or coordination between me and any others also making observations on the trails at the same time. I think that will make IDing observations in the Arboretum for the City Nature Houston Challenge more challenging than it needs to be.

For all the common flowers I observed, what Earth Day at the Houston Arboretum really taught me was how very much I did not know about how very many species. It also showed how inclined I am to stay within my comfort zone, observing things I usually observe, or things I knew could be easily ID'ed. iNaturalist is all about identification, and so many observations go without any specific ID, that if one wants one's observations validated by having ID improved or confirmed, then one quickly (within a week of installing the app) learns to stick with things that can be easily ID'd like flowering plants. "Easily identified" is helpful for the City Nature Challenge which needs big numbers and fast IDs to be able to handle large numbers of species, but it's a poor criteria for observations in other circumstances.

I've been keeping an eye on the wasp nest in the bird feeder, which I've written about before. It's all over now. The small nest has been destroyed, most of the nest is gone, remnants of a couple of empty cells were all that were left. Of the cells that had been capped, no trace remained. I would guess that something that eats wasp larvae got at it, which is one of the outcomes I expected since Carolina Wrens, which are frequenting the yard a lot this spring, like the larvae. Either they found the nest, or something else did.

I've now filled the birdfeeder for the first time in a couple of years. The squirrels are frenzied and I'm once again working on strategy to save the feeder for the birds. I may, again, have to give up having a bird feeder, but thought I'd give it another shot.

I don't know if the squirrels drove mama wasp away before all the cells were filled, or if she just left of her own volition after having filled several cells. I don't know for sure that the Carolina Wrens got at the larvae, but it seems clear that squirrels are (so far) definite winners, being undeterred by wasp, or whatever destroyed the nest. Wrens are also possible winners if they, indeed, got a good meal out of the nest. The wasp---which hasn't been seen in a while---was the definite loser. (I'm attaching my initial observation to this post.)

My goal for Day 1 was simple: hit some park in the Greater Houston area that wasn't likely to be heavily trafficked, get as many observations as I could, ID as many as I could, with an emphasis on flowering plants because they're easy to photograph and ID, and they're plentiful. Oh, boy, were they plentiful! Of course, I'm not going to shun any species that puts itself in my path, but the Plant Kingdom rules when it comes to staying put for a photograph! I observed a lot of birds and bugs which did not stay still for a photo (and I'm loathe to log an observation without a photo, so they were not officially observed). Also, I saw a fair number of tiny colorful and shiny flies which my phone camera would not focus on. I had a specific number goal, which I thought might be hard to hit since it was a small park. Last weekend I did over 3 dozen observations at the Houston Arboretum in a sort of personal "practice bioblitz". I wanted to beat that number this morning. On a practical note: Given that I took multiple photos of most observations, and uploading them, etc. I realized that I should keep an eye on my phone's battery. So, 37 observations or when the battery gets to 20%, that's when I pack it in and go home, I decided. I got 40 observations!! (And the battery didn't hit 20%) Since it was around lunchtime when I did the tally, I decided that was a good stopping place for today. I was really astonished at the number of species in such a small place! And if I could've gotten pics of more insects as well as the birds I saw, the number would've been significantly higher. The park was just teeming with tiny life. I observed more than a dozen species just within about a square yard. I walked quite a bit, but a lot of the time it was just a matter of staying still and seeing everything around me. It was a wonderful way to spend the morning. I've attached today's observations, which have been added to the Houston City Nature Challenge Project.

I was already planning on going to the Exploration Green Grand Opening today, even before I learned about the City Nature Challenge and discovered iNaturalist. The Challenge dovetailed nicely with the idea of a morning spent at Exploration Green. But honestly, because Exploration Green was so new I didn't expect to log more than a handful of observations, then I figured I'd go elsewhere for the bulk of my observations today. But if one really looks (and I did) there are quite a few species in this newly made natural area. (It's a golf course converted to a greenbelt and water retention pond.) I logged 27 observations! While this falls short of my (arbitrary) goal of 3 dozen, it's a respectable number, especially considering that --- for the sake of the challenge--- I did not (or tried not to) log things that I'd observed elsewhere yesterday. We got there before it officially opened at 10 am, met a friend, raided the native plant sale, then walked the winding pathway around the pond. All observations were things that could be seen from that path. We've had an unusually cool spring here (Harris County, Texas), but this wasn't one of those cool days. By the time we left for lunch it was broiling and I'd emptied all my reusable water bottles in a desperate bid to stay hydrated. There are a lot of young trees that have been planted (which I didn't log): they should provide a substantial amount of shade to the path at some point in the future. This is only the beginning of Exploration Green. I've added today's observations to this post.

Yesterday was a big day, by the numbers. I hit 54 observations in a single location, then added another observation elsewhere later for a day's total of 55. I hadn't been checking the leaderboard during the challenge, but I did yesterday and out of curiosity checked the ranking of local observers. To my shock I was #16 in both total observations and species in the Houston area! I'd dropped to #20 the last time I checked. I'm disappointed that more of my species haven't been confirmed or observations ID'd, since species is what determines which city wins, but I figure that everyone is out there observing, rather than identifying right now, so the species numbers won't really settle until some days after the challenge is over. The added grace period for making IDs is really a good idea, and makes this whole challenge thing less crazy.

I try not to duplicate observations from day to day and place to place during the challenge, but there are a few duplications in my observations, either because I wasn't sure if it was the same species I'd observered before, or I'm so punchy from making so many observations in so many days that I don't remember what I've seen from day to day, or because I thought I could get better ID photos the second time around than the first observation. But still, I think there shouldn't be more than 3-4 duplications all total...though in retrospect I'm wondering if there shouldn't be more duplications, a lot more duplications. Here's my reasoning: if the whole idea is to document species in an area and the area is as staggeringly large was what's currently mapped out as "greater Houston" ---and the whole idea is to provide researchers with more data points, then it stands to reason that logging a specific species in multiple locations across the huge area mapped out would make more sense scientifically, than only logging a species once in a single location, even if you see it in other locations much further away. The area mapped out for Houston covers hundreds of square miles from the Woodlands in the north to Galveston Island in the south; it goes as far west as Lake Jackson and further northwest. (Off the top of my head I can't recall the easterly limit.) There are a number of discreet ecosystems within that vast area and while some species are no doubt unique to a small area, others may make incursions into an assortment of areas.

I'm going to stick to trying to log only species that I haven't logged for the challenge before, on this the last day of the challenge, but I'm strongly considering returning to some of the locations I visited for the challenge after the challenge is over and trying to make a more complete survey. Not complete. (I'm not that good!) But document everything I reasonably can. I'm already looking ahead to next year's City Nature Challenge in the sense that by then I'll have a year's worth of iNat observations under my belt, and have more species confirmed. Just since joining iNat a couple of weeks ago my knowledge of species has grown tremendously. With all I've learned in two weeks, imagine what I can learn in the next year! I have attached the day's observations to this post.