Mark your calendars for April 27 - 30! We need your observations!
Calling all naturalists in and around Amarillo! We need YOU! This year's City Nature Challenge is on April 27 - 30, so you can go anywhere within the range (as seen in the above map on the project page) and make observations that will count this year. This is a competition among 65 cities in 15 different countries around the world. Can Texas compete? We think so! But we need your help. Any and all observations count, but the most valuable observations are made on public property (parks, right-of-ways, preserves, etc...) and are of wild (non-cultivated/not captive) organisms. Other observations count, of course, but the wild organisms found on public property can influence management and policy. Wherever you are, observe some things on April 27 - 30! Observations have to be uploaded before May 4 to count as well.
There is a global website here: http://citynaturechallenge.org/ Hopefully we'll have a TX website as well -- stay tuned!
Tagging some of the big users around Amarillo -- please tag others that you think would also want to participate. It's also quite fun to get together with others and deeply explore an area -- connect with some of the other naturalists in the area! :)
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Thanks for rallying!
Tagging these folks:
@ellen5 @amzapp @supercoolmom318 @tornado5 @jsiegma @troney @jotol @donalsg @dare2bloom @berniceblasingame @brads @panhandlegal @carolynd @buff9093 @jefrobodeen @karapierce @dfewell @bbblas46 @susiewhe @jamieoates323 @cpainter @logan
I want to try to do this; am very interested in revisiting Buffalo Lake NWR and perhaps Alibates, if i can get that far. Very interested to hear what other venues you might recommend.
Likely I will NOT get my observations uploaded by the city challenge deadline; i just do not work that fast.
Thanks Sam for posting this shoutout. Ellen5 I would also suggest Palo Duro Canyon.
I'll be there the 28th and 29th if I'm not in Big Bend. I'm interested in Palo Duro and Buffalo Lake.
Palo Duro gets the most attention; i'll skip it
@kayakqueen @dare2bloom
@karanemethy , hope you can make it!
@ellen5 I will try! I live in Austin but travel quite a bit. I'll see if I can take a quick trip and help out. Thanks for letting me know!
Oh man, Kara, that would be fantastic. We're so short-handed up here...you'd really make a difference
The project is more aptly a bioblitz now — so ‘members’ of the project will be shown up when the bioblitz starts — the’users’ will be the participants with observations uploaded. Ideally, you can still chime in on these blog entries and tag folks to work together. With such a large scale bioblitz (the polygon of the area is pretty massive), it’s probably more efficient to organize outside of iNat (facebook events, email chains, newsletters, etc...) to generate small scale bioblitzes or gatherings during this event. Just my two cents worth! :)
Can i upload to the project after May 4th? I don't work nearly that fast.
If not, i would have to do a bunch of dummy uploads and replace the photos later. Which is inefficient and stupid.
@ellen5 observations can be uploaded at any time, but for them to 'count' for the challenge, they have to be uploaded before May 4th. We're still getting observations from the city nature challenge LAST year -- some folks take time with uploading, and that's ok. For this one, we put a deadline on uploads for this specific event.
Like you, I take time with uploading stuff, but I'm just going to have to push myself for this event. :) No sleep!!!
@ellen5, my plan (or rather, "wish") is to crop and upload them each day with basic ID's (plant, insect, etc), then go back on May 1-4 and start giving more definitive IDs to the ones outside folks haven't already ID'd for me. That's the only way I could think of to make this work.
I'm working on my plan of attack now. Will be in touch soon.
Oops, observations need to be uploaded before May 4th, so May 3rd is the deadline. Just so I'm clear, all observations collected on April 27-30 within the box automatically count? I don't have to throw them into a project?
Yep -- so any observation within the four county polygon made from midnight on April 26 (tonight!) until Monday night at midnight will automatically be added to the project. And then you have until midnight on May 3rd (next week Thurs) to upload. :) It'll be CRAZY! :)
Poor, lowly Carson County limps in with a paltry 25 observations. Must address this.
Hey! I am going to participate in Austin, I am unable to swing a trip to the Panhandle this weekend. @sambiology Do I need to join a project to include my observations?
@karanemethy all observations within an area are accrued t the local project whether you join it or not so if you are in Austin your observations should count there.
@ellen5 you go girl!!
I screwed up. Was in Potter county. But doing Carson today with Lena.
Thanks @ellen5. Every little bit helps. You're a rockstar to hit all the outer places that might not get coverage.
You'll be amazed what-all we found out there, in a raging wind. I hope others will visit Carson county.
This is the last thing i am going to say on this subject. (We do hope)
The automated addition of observations to these projects does not work for obscured locations. If you unobscure an observation meeting the project requirements, it then gets added to the project. However, if you then re-obscure the location, it disappears from the project once again.
So if you want to see my observations that should have been included in this project, but won't be, run this search:
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?d1=2018-04-27&d2=2018-04-29&place_id=121393&subview=table&user_id=ellen5
My observations are all uploaded and ID'd (for the most part; surely errors are present). Lack of rainfall in the entire region, heavy winds hindering our ability to do nighttime black-lighting, and a bunch of interference from work prevented me from getting as many observations as I had hoped. But it was fun, the Amarillo region has a few more observations, and let's all cheer Ellen on as she works through her finds!
I'm still working on friday! Lena, we're a great team, because we find completely different treasures
Thank you so much for all you did! And thanks to everyone in the area who added to our knowledge of this area. I, for one, had a great time getting out and have renewed enthusiasm for all our friends in nature.
The results will also be broken down by city size so we will be able to see how we compared with other cities our size.
Talk to you all again tomorrow after the results come up!!
Theresa
City Nature Challenge 2018 Amarillo
Communications Director
Mark your calendar for next year's City Nature Challenge!!!!
April 26-29, 2019!
Stay tuned for more details, but make sure you mark those dates on your calendar! :)
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