Ideas for nature-related at-home activities -- wiki

[jwidness]

Maybe the weather is bad, maybe you broke your foot, maybe you’re allergic to the sun, or maybe you’re under government order to stay inside. Whatever the reason, here are some ideas for nature-related activities you can do indoors.

iNat-related

• use the Identify page to help ID observations (see also this discussion)
• observe wild critters in your home like spiders or house centipedes (humans, food, pets, etc. discouraged) and add them to the Never Home Alone project
• upload those old photos you’ve been meaning to get to
• browse the archive of Observations of the Week on the iNat blog or the Observations of the Day project
• try out the Seek app
• check out other ways to help on iNat
• use the Identify page to annotate observations, like life stage for lepidoptera, or phenology for flowering plants. We could collectively make a big dent in these!

non-iNat ideas

• many zoos are posting “bring the zoo to you” videos, for example the Cincinnati Zoo, the Houston Zoo, the Oregon Zoo, Brookfield Zoo
• museums are also posting at-home ways to interact with their content, e.g. the American Museum of Natural History, the National Museum of Natural History, California Academy of Sciences, the Field Museum
• check out some of the nature podcasts recommended on the forum
• enroll in a nature-related online course, some free ones listed in the science section here
• watch live animal cams, like these, these, or these
• try out a Google Trek, more listed here
• build a hotel for solitary bees & wasps, then post pics of residents to Bee & Wasp Hotels group (on iNat)

• if you have seeds, grow something! If you have houseplants give them a full love-session and tell them your worries.

This is a wiki, please feel free to add ideas!

[robotpie]

@jwidness

observe wild critters in your home like spiders or house centipedes (humans, food, pets, etc. discouraged)

As a currently self isolating iNatter I would leave my room window slightly ajar to let in fresh air and my lights on in the evening, so occasionally a few small critters would invite themselves in for me to observe. Just a few minutes ago I managed to photograph a nice green planthopper, a Mirid plant bug, and a cool looking weevil, so I was pretty chuffed.

[d_kurek]

One thing you can do if you are wanting to upload to iNat at home is possibly put up a moth sheet in your backyard. All you need is a white sheet and a UV light and you can attract all kinds of insects to your home. Even in urban areas there can be hundreds of insect species you may have never seen that end up on the sheet.

[simono]

There’s Zooniverse and Digivol for other online citizen science initiatives.

DIY projects like bee hotels and nest boxes.

[colinpurrington]

I just added that before I saw your reply

[robotpie]

I found just leaving my porch lights on also helps, though with slightly less success.

[tuftedparidae]

If you have nothing to do at all, I highly recommend sitting down and learning a supergenus: I’m slightly biased towards Buprestids, but trying to figure out https://bugguide.net/node/view/2933/tree, https://bugguide.net/node/view/4427/tree, or https://bugguide.net/node/view/12979/tree, is a great timekiller and would certainly help the mountains of observations sent through iNat of these massive genera.

[mira_l_b]

@tuftedparidae

Buprestids

the mouth-feel of this word combined with my first buprestid being a gorgeous one and, on a trip to my happy place: the ocean made me dig these guys and retain the knowledge. Good idea!

@robotpie

I found just leaving my porch lights on also helps, though with slightly less success.

I’ve been challenging myself with the undersides of moths too. I like to guess sex and see if I can learn markings on abdomens or under the hind wings.

My suggestion is to start seeds if you have them or spend some time doting on your existing houseplants. If you grow organic, find and bargain with/ remove, retrain any pests. Bring a little life into your world and take care of something that’s relying on you.

Go through your old photos to upload new (old!) observations to iNat.

[mgood]

If you leave bird seed out, or have birdhouses in view of a window it is relatively easy to bird watch from home!