If you replace the wood fences with cinder blocks, it might as well be my backyard. We can only try … so this year we are giving away sunflower seeds in Albuquerque (you can buy a pound for $20-25 with tens of thousands of seeds for wild-type Helianthus) in partnership with World Migratory Bird Day celebrations next month.
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1,400 insect species with nearly 400 moths (Leps minus butterflies) in my yard & home. And, sunflower seed give away is this weekend!
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It looks as though Environment for the Americas is sponsoring a local event. The WMBD map indicates that there are three events for Colorado (if I’m reading it right), but this is the only one I could find. I’m kind of surprised that none of the national refuges in the state are hosting celebrations.
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My neighbour over the road is ‘tidying’ the house they’ve recently bought. He’s now hacking down a couple of conifer trees using a blunt electric chainsaw. I don’t know how the world is going to get past this idea that nature is untidy. There have been numerous people buying or renting houses around here, chopping down trees that have taken two decades to grow and then selling up and moving on. The conifers are no great loss but they were better than nothing.
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To monitor arthropods in my yard, I put down a wooden board in my grass and wait for arthropods to crawl, jump, or fly on the board. This has proven to be very effective.
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I do monitor my suburban yard, although not as intensely as you seem to do. But I have been surprised at the number of species I’ve seen. For example, I have seen about 110 species of birds in or from my lot. Sometimes surprises show up, e.g., coyotes and eagles. Then again, I am surprised at what I don’t see now that I used to see (long before iNaturalist): Raccoons, woodchucks, skunks, and possums used to be “regulars,” but except for a DOR in the neighborhood, I haven’t seen any of these for a number of years.
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Surprisingly, no rabbits or raccoons (or their scat) at my home. I’m sure bobcats used to roam my neighborhood when it was less populated.
Still so much to see. I set up the UV lamp last night and photographed 10+ lifers that are also new for my yard list. They range from a longhorn beetle to a small parasitic wasp in the family Figitidae.
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- Set up an umbrella project for at-home restorations in your area.
- Identify and Include enough at-home projects to represent an addressable market to a realtor.
- Steer those partially restored properties into the hands of like-minded buyers more apt to manage the property with the same spirit as the original “restorer”.
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I’ve reached 300 species (iNat leaf taxa) for my tiny balcony green space!
(This is not quite species 300, but it is a recent new-to-me bee that I did not expect to find on my balcony, as it is more associated with wooded areas.)
This includes only species that have directly interacted with the balcony and its airspace, plus a few species found indoors that came from outside. I have omitted exclusively indoor residents like cellar spiders (Pholcus) as well as organisms seen from the balcony but not on it. I also haven’t counted the volunteer weeds or spontaneous compost seedlings since I see it as my decision to allow them to stay and to water them along with the other plants.
I haven’t tried to calculate how many of these species live on or regularly use the space vs. one-time fly-by visitors, but a fair portion does actually represent a resident population. One thing that I think has contributed significantly to the species count is the presence of both a compost box and the dead wood I make available for the carpenter bees; this provides fairly diverse habitat that wouldn’t be available with just a container garden.
The actual number of distinct species is likely around 10-20 more, since for some of the more difficult groups there are observations with broader IDs that probably represent multiple taxa but can’t or haven’t been ID’d more finely. (Huge thanks here to the knowledgeable people who have helped me with IDs for the taxa I struggle with – the fly and beetle lists in particular would be much less interesting without their assistance.)
Some stats:
- Hymenoptera – 72
bees (Anthophila) – 39
other Aculeata – 22
Parasitica (Proctotrupomorpha + Ichneumonidae + Braconidae) – 9 - Diptera – 55
Syrphidae – 14 - Coleoptera – 49
- Heteroptera – 24
- Lepidoptera – 18
- Auchenorrhyncha - 7
- Orthoptera – 3
- Psocodea – 6
- Collembola – 6
- Araneae – 24
- Aves – 6
- Fungi + Protozoa – 7
Largest species: a mallard that repeatedly landed on one of the planters and seemed to be checking out the space for a nesting site (on the third floor? Really? I shooed her away)
Largest resident species: violet carpenter bee
Smallest: tiny globular springtails (Sminthurinus trinotatus or similar), well under 1 mm, living in the soil, which I probably would not have even spotted except for the bright white spots on the sides.
What has impressed me the most is the unsuspected diversity of aphid parasites and predators. In addition to the familiar hoverfly and ladybeetle and lacewing larvae, I have also found at least two species of braconid wasp responsible for “aphid mummies”, a crabronid wasp that provisions its nest with aphids, and, most recently, aphid midge larvae.
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I’ve now uploaded over 2,000 “moth” sheet nocturnal observations from my garden representing at least 650 insect species. The monitoring portion is taking up a lot of my free time! Some examples:
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Maybe not that big a deal (to anybody but me), but I just got my first Meadowhawk in my garden! Plenty of Spreadwings, perching Skimmers, and hunting swarms of Darners (the Aerial 501st ‘Bug Hunters’!), but never a Meadowhawk.
I don’t have the photos uploaded yet, but it was a female Striped Meadowhawk (Sympetrum pallipes). Hopefully, she’s the first of many visitors this summer.
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Definitely a big deal! I was so excited too when I saw the first Odanata on my balcony: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/225135827
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And she’s a cutie! I love Damsels as much as I love their bigger cousins.
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If you haven’t tried yet, trail cameras are quite efficient for mammals, over ~20 species in my plot of land, many were only spotted that way. If you can find traces of a “path” across a hedge for example, it’s a good idea to place a camera there.
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In 3 months, I’ve added 180 new insect species to the list! The UV lamp feels like cheating when a water strider shows up in the desert.
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/233988738
Sunflowers are blooming nicely and I see goldfinches eating the seeds outside my window as I type. I’m scheduled for a webinar in October https://desertblooms.nmsu.edu/grow.html to talk about pollinators and my garden. I need to work on the slides…
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That’s what prompted me to use inaturalist. During covid I started planting natives and saw such an increase in wildlife and diverse wildlife at that. I wanted to know what impact my tiny gardens had on the local wildlife so I started documenting every bee, wasp, beetle, bird, ant, etc. The total count in my very small property, after removing all but one small strip of lawn in a span of 3 years, was over 150 different species.
I have an Instagram account where I post about my native plant gardening, I now moderate a local FB group, I volunteer for a non-profit planting micromeadows or giving away native plant kits, I work for a different non-profit stewarding/planting/weeding their gardens and hosting events throughout the year (nature fest, winter sowing, seed collecting, etc), have done several talks and also work a native plant landscaping company stewarding and planting 
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Here’s my garden…
https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/diversitaet-im-garten
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Beautiful work!
Is that a hammock to photograph from? Wonderful idea!
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I monitor the number of species of fungi and invertebrates. All that sit still long enough for a photo go on inat, the rest get a quick description in a notebook. I also try to carry out 10-min bird and insect surveys once a week. I hope to track the effects of more environmentally friendly gardening practices this way. (although now I think of it, I haven’t yet started recording those gardening practices yet, which is . . . an oversight on my part)
For those who try to foster biodiversity in their garden and have something of a vegetable patch/fruit trees, I am curious to hear how you balance the two goals.
Do you leave the native plants that self-seed in between your vegetables alone? Do you have separate areas for native and non-native plants or is it all mixed together?
(deleted post was just this but accidentally replying direct to someone, not general)
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