Great Southern Bioblitz! What's your plan?

It starts from 9/20 to 9/23!
https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/great-southern-bioblitz-2024-umbrella

This year I’m hoping to get at least 500 species observed, planning to visit at least 10 sites in my area with minimal sleep.

My plan includes plant scanning, bird call recordings, vegetation beating for insects, mothing, spotlighting at night, log flipping, beachcombing for shells and stuff, rockpooling, mud sieving, and more!

Anyone with a fun plan?

(I know forum isn’t a place to promote a project, but I think this is more of a large-scale bioblitz instead of a personal project hence this topic- if not appropriate, please remove)

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I’m hoping the weather won’t be too bad. Last time the GSB was in September we had snow. This year it looks like a lot of rain.

I have a moth night organised in a public park. Hoping that doesn’t get rained out! And a few plans for places to visit on my own, but haven’t set any targets for numbers of observations or species.

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Moth night sounds fun! I’ve actually ordered a portable power source for setting up a moth trap, but I’m not sure if it will arrive on time…

I think bioblitz like this is a good opportunity to observe things we’ve been overlooking.
For me, it would be a lot of introduced weeds.

I’ve been work out what I haven’t observed yet in my area, using this link (you can change the user ID of the link to yours and limit the area of the map to see what you’ve been missing in your area).

https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?hrank=species&place_id=any&subview=map&unobserved_by_user_id=invertebratist

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I will be heading to the beach with a friend. Unfortunately no rock pools in the area, but sea birds, beach finds, dune life - lots to see. We will also crawl about in the Sandveld fynbos and perhaps some Renosterveld as well, a lovely variety of habitats. Weather looks good apart from the West Coast wind!

I have no targets I want to reach, my aim is to have as much fun as possible out in the veld and outdoors.

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Going to play in Darling - which will give me a fresh set of biodiversity for my iNat.
https://www.inaturalist.org/places/darling-hills
https://www.inaturalist.org/places/darling-renosterveld-reserve
https://www.inaturalist.org/places/darling-veldblomme-local-nature-reserve
https://www.inaturalist.org/places/waylands-wildflower-reserve

Note to self - could add archived photos
https://eefalsebay.blogspot.com/2015/08/spring-flowers-at-ramskop-2010-2012.html
https://eefalsebay.blogspot.com/2017/10/postberg-darling-spring-flowers-september-2014.html
https://eefalsebay.blogspot.com/2016/09/rocher-pan-nature-reserve-hiking-with-flowers-and-birds.html
https://eefalsebay.blogspot.com/2018/09/west-coast-spring-flowers-august-2018-postberg-darling.html

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Is there a Great Northern Bioblitz for those of us at more northern latitudes?

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There’s the global City Nature Challenge (2024 projects here and here), which is usually in late April. It causes quite an impressive spike in observations on iNaturalist.

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The Great Southern BioBlitz was created because the City Nature Challenge is in our autumn. So this is to capture spring on our side of the world.

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Oh right - it’s spring for y’all down there! Hemispheres are confusing.

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Alrighty, the first day (9/20) has ended!

I’ve photographed approx 256 species, within 8 hrs (16:00-24:00).
Most of these are weeds and some native plants, then some inverts and one native skink that was a lifer for me.

Tomorrow, I’m heading to rockpools and mudflats to get marine stuff, because the tide is very low.

Exciting!

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It has ended. I should have at least 550 species photographed - which I need to upload by 7 th of Oct! Woohoo!!

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Don’t forget to leave time for IDing - things uploaded on the 7th might miss being IDed in time for the cut-off.

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and it is really sad, to find the good stuff, much too late.
Still interesting, but.

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Could this be solved by making sure to put an initial ID at the time of upload? A big part of our backlog is the result of many observers playing a numbers game, uploading as much as they can without taking the time to learn about what they are uploading.

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I don’t know. Right at the moment there are 128,025 “Needs ID” observations in the GSB. Of course any that haven’t been uploaded yet will add to that total. Last I checked there were about 15,000 “Unknown” in that total, so not a huge percentage of the observations needing identification. Unknowns need at least 2 IDs if they are going to reach RG, whereas some of the others may only need 1 more ID added.
Currently 3,420 people have added IDs, some more than others. I’m the 9th on the list and I feel like I’ve done nothing but ID for the last few days. I might not have any IDing left in me by the 7th!

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I left this comment on the IdentiFriday thread. Go Vireya!

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Pondoland is now over 2K species.
And 3/4 of those sp are plants!

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So at the end, I reached 700 species and I’m #2 in the whole GSB in terms of species observed!

https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/great-southern-bioblitz-2024-umbrella?tab=observers

Pretty happy with the result. I have about 50 more I need to upload…

@nicklambert got #1 with almost 1200 species. You are too good!

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I came second in observations and species in the project I was responsible for. Very happy with the participation rate this time, as we bettered our results for the previous 3 GSBs.
I was top identifier in our project, and at the end of the ID period was No.9 hemisphere-wide. Someone has done a few more since and pushed me to number 10 last time I looked.
So, pretty happy with my results, too!

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Brava! I hugely appreciated your contribution as I followed in your footsteps.
I puttered in at Identifier #17. Not counting the d*mned dicots Reviewed.
But at least one new species added to iNat from my haul.

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