What is your best iNat memory/experience of 2021? What are your goals for 2022?
Happy Holidays! Stay safe from Omicron y’all.
I’ll start, cause why not.
2021: Joined this crazy website when a friend encouraged me to be on her CNC team. Helped add iNat first records like Penstemon metcalfei and doubled the number of observations of these tiny, native, specialist bees. Favorite picture of the year:
2022: Goals are 50,000 IDs, especially getting halfway through Penstemon observations. Finish writing journals. Find yard bee #100 and 500th arthropod species at home. Continue signing up neighbors for https://friendsofvalledeoro.org/abq-backyard-refuge/
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That’s a cool topic idea!
Best of 2021: Seeing spring bird migration and lush plants in early May in Crimea, first time visited high mountains, new local plants and birds in Altai, 60 bird lifers this year prove my suffering was worth it!
Plans for 2022: visiting Amur and maybe Yakutia/Irkutsk in summer, Dagestan in spring, exploring areas around 2 datchas (forests around 1 and close villages around 2). Maybe getting higher in our plant competition this time.)
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My absolute best memory of the year is driving about with a buddy of mine in panhandle Florida, stopping to look at an iris, and spotting an Eastern Diamondback Rattlesnake just down the road from me. I’ve wanted to see one since I was a wee little kid, and it was SO COOL. https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/79884014
Targets for next year include Lilypad Forktail damselfly which has evaded me for a while now.
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My best 2021 memory: my trip to Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks.
Hopes for 2022: being able to travel internationally again.
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2021 actively building my life list on iNat (for October and November).
2022 work thru December to September with new or archived records to cover the full year. Curious to see what my weekly hikes will add up to.
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2021: starting the streak of my daily (different!) beast. Though I could not travel it kept me busy and entertained - hopefully I’ll make it to the end of the year. Now that I don’t find anything new during the day (or at least it’s very unlikely), I have switched to nightly walks and concentrate on moths.
2022: a daily beast is a bit of stress, but maybe a daily different species. And I’ll continue the moths.
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What’s your favorite moth so far? I like Pseudanarta and yucca moths.
Best moment of 2021? Probably being one of my best years ever for anything, it’s hard to choose what was the best part. October was probably the best for birds (Emperor Goose, Brown Booby, Ancient Murrelet, Northern Fulmar), August the best for lifers. After years of failed attempts, I finally was able to tick all of the woodpeckers off my list.
I made the yearly goals post last year and in terms of keeping those goals:
Birds: 3/3 – Completed
Mammals: 1/3 – Missed Bobcat and American Pika
Reptiles and Amphibians: 0/6
Fish: 1/3 – Missed Bull Trout and Coho Salmon
Insects: 2/3 – Missed apotes
- Reach 2,000 species on my list life – Failed (1,470)
- Reach at least 10th place in Oregon species list – Failed (11th with 1214)
- Reach at least 10th place in Idaho species list – Failed (14th with 441)
- Photograph all the undescribed species of Steiroxys – Failed (3 out of 16 that we know of)
- Photograph the Idaho endemics of Melanoplus and add the first iNat obs – (Failed but I got some previously unobserved species of the genus in Oregon)
Overall Goal Completion: 7/23
NEW GOALS FOR 2022:
- Observe the top 10 life birds on iNat’s Oregon list (Common Murre, Purple Martin, Sooty Grouse, Wrentit, Tufted Puffin, Hermit Warbler, Hutton’s Vireo, Surfbird, Short-billed Dowitcher, Red-throated Loon)
- Observe the top 10 life birds on iNat’s Idaho list (Cordilleran Flycatcher, Pinyon Jay, Red-eyed Vireo, Northern Hawk Owl, Virginia’s Warbler, Black Rosy-Finch, American Redstart, Rose-breasted Grosbeak, Red-flanked Bluetail
, White-winged Dove) - If I move to Wyoming this fall, I’d like to bump my state list to 300 species.
- Bump my Orthoptera life list to 100 species.
- Instead of two thousand, let’s set the bar lower and see if can get 1,800 on my life list.
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definitely a Noctuid, maybe Leucochlaena oditis (Beautiful Gothic, what a name, should be made into a song!) or Trigonophora flammea (Flame Brocade) or Xanthia austauti, where my photo is the only one on iNat.
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2021
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I’m on my way to meeting my new year’s resolution: only make one Mallard observation for the year. (It was my most observed species and I wanted something else to take its place.)
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In May a friend and I went to Fossil Falls to check out lizards as they took in the morning sun on the volcanic rocks (eg this desert collared lizard). Ran into another person doing the same thing and we talked about how wonderful of a morning it was to be looking for lizards. I was pretty sure it was @sullivanribbit but didn’t have the nerve to ask until I messaged him on iNat later and confirmed it was him! iNat’s a small world.
2022
- Try to actually learn more about plants and plant identification. The voluminous terminology is a big barrier for me.
- Improve macro flash set up.
- Hopefully travel outside of California?
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I had a dip in observations in 2021 for a variety of reasons and hope to get back into higher numbers next year.
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I had to look back at my calendar to remind me of what inatting activities I did this past year, and it was not much. The largest amount of activity was during the CNC, for which I decided to stay quite local and keep myself essentially in the urban habitat (local parks, porch at home etc.). I am happy to report that I have encountered many lifers so that adds to the documented biodiversity of such areas.
For 2022, I don’t have much to look forward to, probably hoping to set up some light-traps to document more local moth biodiversity, and visit some new places (if allowed by the pandemic), and buying an actual camera with a macro lens setup.
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Our favorite observations of 2021 were Bobcat https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/89240276 and Rusty-patched Bumblebee https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/92721249. The traveling to new spots with our best iNat buddy was the biggest highlight.
For 2022, we hope some of our newly planted native perennials bloom and attract a diversity of organisms we can observe.
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In 2021 I observed more new species per month since 2018, and I met my goal of visiting two national parks (Indiana Dunes and Smoky Mountains). I also became very interested in plant-galling species and observed hundreds of them.
In 2022 I hope to visit Adams County, Ohio in all four seasons in an effort to document the biodiversity of that county as comprehensively as possible. I’m also probably going to California in March which will be an opportunity to observe new species, as well as Germany in May-June.
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My best memories of 2021 for Inat are:
• Finding an endemic Astragalus in Utah that has a population of less than 5,000 individuals.
• Seeing *Smilax pseudochina * on Long Island( only one plant in all of New York)
• Finding three more orchid species that I have wanted to find for years.
For 2022, my goals are
At least 10K obs
Find >1,600 species
Try to have a observation streak with over 100 consecutive days
Add 500 new species to my lifelist
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You can’t say this and not link it!
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A little update, we’re going to Primorskiy krai in May. For those interested look at the beauties: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?month=5&place_id=139362
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Wow, I am envious! There’s so much beautiful stuff to see there.
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I hope to reach 4,000 species in 2022.
I’m also trying to track down and observe every species of plant that has been observed in my county. I have 1600 of them, there’s around 600 more that are on iNat but I haven’t seen.
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