2023 Tallahassee Florida Region City Nature Challenge's Journal

Hello all, hope you're honing your observational skills and getting ready for the CNC 4-Day Bioblitz.
Got your iNatting sites piicked out? Pack a bag lunch and lots of water and get massive doses of Vitamin N (Nature), for any or all of 4 days!

Suggestions for different habitats welcome. State Parks, City Parks, various springs around here, even your back yard. I think I'll plan on spending as many hours as possible at:
Rhoden Hill Conservancy, Tallahassee
Wacissa Springs, kayaking
Kirk Edwards Wildlife Area
West Lake Road, through the plantation area (Jefferson Co)
Leon Sinks

I can't cover all these myself, but some other great places would be
Torreya State Park
St. George Island
Alligator Point
Ochlockonee River State Park
St. Marks Wildlife Refuge
Three Rivers State Park, recovering from Hurricane Michael damage
Seminole State Park, Georgia

Hello everyone! The number of participants in our Bioblitz grows, slowly. We're now 79 and I'm in my last go-through ol scanning county observations for new folks to mnessage.

Yesterday I had a Zoom call with the CNC organizers, discussing final preparations.
A few noteworthy comments were made, worth sharing so you all know too!

1. Dates for making "observations" are April 28 00:01 AM through May 1 23:59 PM. That is, your photo's metadata must be from within that date/time range.
   
2. Uploading observations can be done until May 8 08:00. But let's not wait that long because you won't get them identified by others!
3. Getting things identified to species must all be done by May 8: 08:00 AM PST
4. Anyone can do identifications. If you go to the Project during the Blitz you can review observations that are made by everyone. You can use filters to sort the observations to taxon (birds, plants etc). Also pick identification level (Needs ID etc), so you can avoid spending time identifying things that are already Research Grade.

Hi all, in response to the question posted yesterday,”What would be the dream participant”. I appreciate getting some feedback from the group, I was beginning to wonder if anyone was seeing my occasional post.
A Bioblitz is, by definition, is simply a blitz of making many biological observations within a prescribed period. It means to document the organisms you see around you, and not just the things you’ve never seen before.
Every time I go out iNatting, I try to find as many different organisms as possible, as well as trying to take photos of structural details of the organism that will make it identifiable. I think we all do that to a certain extent, whenever we go out on walks, cycling, kayaking, etc.
The dream participant would:

1. Find as many different wild organisms as possible, across all Kingdoms of organisms from fungi to plants, insects, birds, mammals, herbs, fish, mollusks, etc. Wild means not planted or raised by humans. In your own back yard is fine as long as it got there all by itself!
2. Go explore many different habitats, from terrestrial to fresh water to sea shore, and the micro habitats with these. We have numerous counties in our challenge, so go explore these, not just in your home county. I’m making a list of sites for myself to explore, so that I’m ready to roll right away and not guessing the morning of.
3. Take at least 3-4 photos of each organisms, each photo in focus, and from different angles to show different features and patterns of color. Optimal photos needed depends on the organism. Practice doing bulk uploads of your photos, if you are familiar with that. I’ve written up instructions if you need this.
4. Finally, strive to obtain species level identifications to Research Grade status, by not only obtaining that level on your own observations, but also go through all the Blitz Observations and review those still needing to reach research grade. Research Grade of wild organisms only is what counts in the final numbers of the CNC.

Happy iNatting my friends!

Uploading batched observations! Apologies if this comes across as totally obvious or too long.

Say you’ve been out traveling and can’t timely upload your pix using your iPhone, or there’s no internet there, or can’t download from your fancy digital camera. To do batch uploads you must first download pix to your PC. Then go to iNaturalist on your PC. This is what folks have done, when you see they’ve just loaded up 50 observations in a matter of a few minutes! Metadata from your phone’s photos are uploaded automatically.

1. Log into iNaturalist on your computer. I make a temp folder in my Downloads folder, then download the photos from my phone using it as an external drive plugged into a USB port. But you can do it however you like to do it. Just be sure all your photos are downloaded.
2. One issue I’ve discovered is that a few photos will download in some weird and unusable format. It’s worth double-checking to ensure all your photos are in fact uploaded, that some are not “thought of” by your PC as “corrupted”. These ones I’ll have to email to myself from the phone and download that way.
   
3. Click “Upload” = top right green arrow button
4. Click “Choose files” = big blue button center of screen.
5. Find the folder containing your photos
6. Select all the photos you want to upload and click “Open”.
   

7. All your photos are now uploaded, each one a separate observation. Now, to combine the ones that belong together in the same observation.
   a. Using drag-and-drop, combine your multiple photos per observation, dragging each one onto the one you want as the Default primary photo.
   b. Note the 1st observation now shows a ¼ or 2/3 etc in the center; see right left arrows at the sides to scroll through them to confirm they are the right ones!

8. Now, click on the “Species Name” box and let it load suggestions. Do your best to identify to some level. Never select “Unknown”. Is it safe to assume that you will know if it’s an insect or fungus or plant?

9. Add any notes to the Notes box.
   a. In the case of mushrooms and what not, these can be important characteristics to include, such as “growing on oak stump”.
   b. I’ll include geographic information such as “St. Marks Headwaters Greenway”, which is more specific than “Leon County” that’s selected by default when iNat cannot find a more specific “Place”. Simply copy & paste that note into all the other observations made there.

10. When all done, review and click “Submit ## observations”, top right below your name!
11. Now, your observations will be uploaded using today’s date, with the actual date of the observation included in the middle of the list. The mobile look will be quite different from the PC, of course.
    

Hello folks, we’re just under 12 hours from the CNC bioblitz starting line! We are 85 participants strong! Personally, I’ve drafted my itinerary that, rain or shine, will put me in many habitats, from freshwater and marine to various upland habitats, in some half dozen counties, morning to near dark! Let’s remember, we’re looking for wild organisms only, so if you’re observing in your own yard or nearby, city parks etc., that’s all things you didn’t intentionally plant. Any wild organisms, alive or dead!

• 4 days of observing gives you till Monday midnight to take your photos.
• 4 days following gives you time to finish uploading the photos you ran out of time to do sooner.
• The same 4 days gives us all time to identify both our own and anyone else’s observations and to confirm the IDs that were made.
• Identifications can be made by anyone, and it takes 2 identifications to make observations Research Grade, which is what counts!

Happy hunting!