Additionally to iNaturalist, are there any tools or methods people use /have developed for passively monitoring wildlife in their gardens? Of course there are trail cams, but is there anything else people have used? Just curious.
Welcome to the forum, Louis!
Acoustic monitoring is one method. I personally don’t get involved with it, but some forum members are deeply knowledgeable about various sound recording devices, and they spend a lot of time identifying sound recordings on iNaturalist.
You can read more about it in this thread: https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/bird-ids-from-passive-acoustic-monitor/
eDNA (Environmental DNA) seems promising, although I guess it requires sophisticated measuring equipment that is not widely available for consumer use at the moment. Also, please note this response from staff:
I don’t have much personal experience with these things, but some forum members do. Hopefully they will chime in!
Please bear in mind that almost all iNaturalist users are NOT on the forum. So you might have better luck identifying these types of observations on iNaturalist, and DMing other people who also identify these types of observations.
By the way, what is your username on iNaturalist? I don’t see an account for louisradtke.
Probably not as fun. But I have left to rot logs of wood in the soil. And moooooonths later some fungi were growing on it. I also hage picked logs of wood and taken them with me and put them in the soil in my garden and let them rot. There.
… If you like to report fungi I guess that could be a passive way.
You could also do rice traps.
Now my mistake with my rotting logs is never knowing what the original tree was? Next time I set a rotting log i will record the type or tree it was.
Now why in the world do I have rotting logs in my garden?
- Pretty? 2. Bugs. 3. Fungi. 4. Its a sacrifice, so the bugs dont touch my sitting logs. (As much)
You could also do a bug hotel. And then simply report the bugs who visit the hotel.
But if you want the fungi, you gotta let it rot.
Hi Adam,
Thank you for your advice. To be honest I’m pretty new to iNaturalist (my username is louis77416), but I’m a big nature enthusiast! I am doing a project looking at how how wildlife in gardens can be passively monitored and how the information gathered could be used to create in-depth data sets that cross reference different eco systems. I want to explore how that information could be used to give individuals personalised recommendations on how to support the nature that is specific to their gardens. I’m just in the very initial research phase at the moment, hence my line of questioning.
That’s a great idea! Do you plan to record the data via iNaturalist or any other way? Or would you just observe and leave it at that?
My inat account is mainly dedicated to report what i observe in my “patio”. I have a project called Los Amigos de Betania on Inaturalist. You can check it out in this link.
https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/los-amigos-de-betania
This place used to be a cow pasture, and my family and I are restoring it as a native forest. And all the friends who help us with trees and… anything tbh.
So the logs were a way to bring an ecosystem to my plot of land. Like my thinking was: “uhhh bug food”.
I want bugs. Lots or bugs. So in a non scientific way, I just naturally picked up logs from cuttings from trees in the road. And put them there as sacrifice for the bugs. An any tree that fell… became log. And so like that.
Is after i did that, that i noticed some logs were growing fungi. Specially those in shadow places.
So i regretted not recording what kind of log i was getting. For the data.
The second time i bring logs… i picked them up thinking on the fungi so i left them on purpose of humid places. But once again i didnt record the log itself… i wonder if i should…
So. Do I record via inat? Yes. I have report the fungi. Or the bug.
If you check my project and check the fungi you will notice some of them are logs. Those are the rotting logs.
Do i just leave it like that? Kinda yes, because i didnt do it on purpose. I just know now in retrospect that it can work for passive recording (now that you asked).
Do i have a scientific method? Certainly not. It just happened. I just know that rotting logs bring me life to report.
Can it be made with a scientific method? Yes.
Recording the log specie. The time. The size. The place its placed. The nature is exposed. Ciclical observations. Once a month.
It would be fun to do it, you know, scientifically… not like me, who is just doing it empirically.