@blazeclaw You’ll be happy to know I’m doing my part - so far this year I have only recorded 2 mallards, whereas during the first 11 days of last year I had 13 :P
My personal top species for the year so far is California Slender Salamander, with 10 observations.
Looks like that record was created with just 13 observers as well! Just goes to show, a significantly dedicated cabal of naturalists can probably make anything the top species if they set their minds (and cameras) to it.
Numbers make it a very different game today, though.
In 2013 there were about 300.000 observations on iNat and the cumulative total by the end of the year was around 455.000
In 2021 alone there were more than 32.000.000.
While it’s fairly straightforward to corral 13 naturalists to make a concerted effort to document a rare local species, you would be hard pressed to find the 1000 or so dedicated observers you would need to push a species to the top spot in similar fashion today.
Oh thats good to know. I had been wondering because theres a decent amount of variation even in a relatively small geographic area, but was having trouble finding concrete information about it.
I probably saw 200-300 Canada Geese in one spot the other day. But I refuse to photo them (most of the time). They’re more ubiquitous than mallards in my corner of the world.
Mea culpa! Mea culpa! I have posted two or three Mallard observations already this year. I tried to resist. Really. But they’re so obvious and cooperative and there!
This year so far I posted a mallard, a Mexican duck, and mallard X Mexican duck hybrid. So that’s only 1.5 mallards but would’ve counted as 3 full mallards a few years ago. I’m reducing my personal mallard input through taxonomic revision.
I have observed 9 mallards in 2022, which is significantly less than the number of days I have been out with my camera, so I’m going to continue to claim I’m doing my part!