Need to tell the Calligrapher Fly to write in an easier to read script.
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We have been in Stay At Home lockdown for a week. Only allowed out for essential food and medicine. Our essential frontline workers include garbage collection (even our recycling is still being collected)
In the days leading up to lockdown, first our beaches were closed. Then the national parks.
People say they hear more birds. And I heard an owl hoot!
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Last night I heard a morepork, first time in the 15 years that we have lived in this houseā¦
I am expecting a considerable drop in the monthly road-toll, which incidentally is still considerably higher than our covid deaths. I canāt help thinking itās going to be a similar drop in animal road-kill ā¦
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Interesting to look at China air pollution maps now. They have been showing a huge positive impact of lockdown on air quality. Although, It might be quite temporal.
As for us, I could say that birds in parks seem hungry and very interested in rare people(breaking the law) in parks. In Moscow, lockdown(=empty feeders) concise with heavy snowfall, so birds had a few hungry days. Now, when the snow melts, and they could find more food by themselvesā¦
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Did either of you record the calls?
i wonder if itās worse that than in some casesā¦ if some people who relied on tourism to scratch out a living, might they be tempted to do a little extra unauthorized hunting or foraging out of desperation?
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I didnāt last night, but I will be in the yard over the next couple nights trying to get a recording, and hopefully a photo tooā¦
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Hopefully itāll show up again!
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In South Africa, all the Nature reserves are under lockdown, only allowed out for essentials / emergency purposes
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Our response in NZ is to have set up an open-ended Project called StayiNatHome NZ for the duration of the lock down, and gearing up to the global City Nature Challenge which will now i think focus on recording anything in and around home. In the 10 days since our lock down 853 observers have made 6800 observations of 2000 spp. https://inaturalist.nz/projects/stayinathome-nz?tab=species . This shaping up to be an interesting inventory of urban/peri-urban natural history. We expect to get some air time on the media over the next week which should boost uptake and membership of iNat. good luck, stay well everyone.
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I would like to get back to the origional intention of this post. Are you seeing any benefits in the limitation of the movement of people? I drove to the shops today, and there where guineafowl playing in the main road.
When did we leave it? Seeing more of what is in our own backyards is a tangible āsilver liningā.
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Guineafowl in the garden across the road today - but they are common here as we are only a few houses from the urban edge and Table Mountain National Park.
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I live in one of the āouter boroughsā (that is, not Manhattan) of New York City. Fortunately, although many businesses are closed or working from home, schools are closed, etc., our city parks are still open and we are gently encouraged to go to parks for exercise and fresh air occasionally, so long as there arenāt crowds. Iāve gotten out and so far people are observing social distancing practices in my local parks. (Iāve heard thatās not true everywhere.) Iāve also been uploading photos from past nature walks to iNat, which is goodāalmost like taking the walks again.
Itās difficult to see a real upside to the COVID-19 situation right now, but there are a few positive outcomes that could come about.
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People have been saying they miss parks and museums. Letās hope they all follow up by visiting when this is over.
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While the drop in carbon dioxide and other emissions will probably pick up again as soon as restrictions are over, I hope there will be enough data for researchers to analyze what happened during the drop.
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Those of us who find ourselves with spare time (not true of everyone, remember) have been doing some of the things we had wanted to do āwhen we had some spare timeāā¦ like being active on iNaturalist, cooking at home, doing crafts, etc. Will that lead to long-term change? Only time will tell. But perhaps at least some people will think more deeply about how we spend our time and choose more self-sufficient and creative activities.
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Well thereās definitely less trash along my road, because I have been spending my free time cleaning it up, something I have been meaning to do for a long time now. 21 trash bags full and still not done yet.
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Now I need a separate post about negative impact on mental health.
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The lockdown has given me the opportunity to look through my unidentified obs to try to make positive IDs.
Question: Is it better to make a bad ID or not?
For example, looking at an observation where you know it is e.g. an erica. Donāt know which species. Do the research. Narrow it down to one of three or four. Choose one by guesswork. Do you post it and hope it is right or leave it as Erica only? Sadly (and across genera) I have several that are like this, and I am sure other users have the same dilemma. Certain people prefer the ID to be made and hope that the experts will confirm / re-identify. Others prefer to leave it at genus level.
My own preference, (by a very short margin) is to do the ID.In general terms, if it is wrong, over time, other posts will illustrate what is wrong, but that presupposes that you go back and re-look at doubtful IDs at a later stage.
Any thoughts?
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I would put genus and make a comment about the species possibilities. Only if there was a substantially greater chance of the one over the others would I put the species ID, but even then it would also be with a comment clarifying my position and how sure I am.
If you are picking one at random from a number of possibilities, then that is definitely going too fineā¦
Seriouslyā¦ if order is all that can be determined from a photo, then that is the ID that is most appropriate! Even if an observer demands an ID, which itself is not acceptable conduct, you should only be identifying to the level you can be confident. In comments, on the other hand, you can be as speculative as you wish!
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Over time wrongly ided observations will be lost in hoards of new ones, many wrong ids are being agreed by new users and you can easily miss that moment, iNat guidelines are clear as any scientific research, you donāt say what you want, but what you know, and if you canāt know for sure - donāt add that id. Do it if you decided that it matches one species more, but add a comment, a simple question mark could be enough. As others said before me on this forum, itās not about getting RG or species level, genus or family is already a good data if itās a truth.
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