Archivos de diario de abril 2022

10 de abril de 2022

Less than three weeks to the beginning of this year's Nature Challenge April 29 to May 2

Every annual Nature Challenge has three goals:

  • add more observations
  • find more species
  • get more people observing

Last year in Manitoba there was a single Nature Challenge event in the Winnipeg Region. This year there will be two events - the second Winnipeg Region event and the first one held in Brandon! @hipstermama is taking the lead out west. Here's some links for their event. I encourage you to help them get their event off to a great start.

In 2021, 63 observers took part in the Winnipeg Region event, making 2,432 observations of 423 species. More than half the observers involved last year made fewer than 5 observations each. I know there is room for improvement there - as the two observers who made the highest number of observations made over 1500 observations between them. If most people make 10 observations each instead of 5, it will make a big difference.

Here's what I did last year and how it worked out for me. Perhaps it will spark some ideas for you whether you are a new or experienced iNaturalist observer.

  1. I planned with my friends and family that those four days would be about making observations. The usual weekend chores got done ahead of time or delayed till later - and I took vacation days for the Friday and Monday. (A more moderate plan might just be to plan to go outside for an hour or so to collect observations.)
  2. I did not go alone. My friends and family are very used to enabling me - they drive me places, help me spot things and generally make the outings enjoyable. We bounce ideas off each other to identifying what we have seen and where else we might find things.
  3. I went to several different locations each day, making observations in a variety of habitats, especially ones where I knew there were organisms that might not otherwise be observed. The boundaries of the Winnipeg region event extend far beyond the city limits and include many public natural areas. Last year many of these locations were not visited or only visited briefly by a few observers. I wrote a series of journal posts for last year's event looking at each map square - beginning near the centre and spiraling out toward the edges - here's a link to the first one.
  4. When I started with iNaturalist, I did use my phone to photograph observations - but now I use an Olympus Tough TG-6 which has the ability to tag the photos with gps coordinates and has the plus of being able to get wet or be dropped without breaking. I was always running out of space (and charge) on my phone but with the camera I bring extra batteries and an extra memory card:)
  5. I upload my observations when I get home. Network connectivity across the region varies wildly and seeing something I want to photograph while waiting for the previous observation to upload drives me nuts - so I sit with my laptop in my nice warm house with a high-speed connection and upload everything after I get home, instead of in the field.
  6. I check the website to see what else is happening to get new ideas for places to look for organisms. Here's the aggregating links for this year...

Please feel free to add in the comments any questions or suggestions for participants in this year's event.

Publicado el 10 de abril de 2022 por marykrieger marykrieger | 0 comentarios | Deja un comentario

17 de abril de 2022

Waterfowl - the start of a beautiful relationship

My friends and I were discussing waterfowl last night - for some of us it was the first time hearing the word. We talked about how when you are new to an experience, everything looks sorta the same - but the closer you look the more differences appear. Eventually you wonder how you ever thought they were alike.

Last year we collectively recorded 252 observations of waterfowl in the Winnipeg region CNC - about a third of our bird observations were waterfowl and we found them pretty much everywhere we looked - providing there was some water for them to swim about in.

Waterfowl or Anseriformes are a group of birds that 'look like a goose'. They all have webbed feet set back on their body so that they tend to waddle when they walk and large bills. In our part of the world, they are mostly migratory (its pretty hard to be a waterbird when it is all frozen). The timing of the CNC event coincides with the northward spring migration so we have not only the birds that plan to stay but also all those moving through to places north of us where there is room and food to nest.

Waterfowl spend much of their time on or near water - ditches, marshes, sloughs, retention ponds, creeks, rivers. They are generally confident that they can fly their way out of trouble and so are often seen in the open - swimming, loafing and feeding. In some locations, you can take photos of the ducks using your car as a blind. Pick a less travelled road near a wet area, park on the shoulder and wait with the window rolled down.

The waterfowl we see in Manitoba are all Anatidae: ducks, geese and swans. During last year's event, we found 18 species of ducks and geese but no swans.

Swans are the big white birds with the long necks. We have two species Trumpeter Swans and Tundra Swans . Telling the two apart requires a really nice look at the head and bill - so if you have a long lens and luck you have a chance for a species id. Swans as a group are a pretty easy id though as they are so big and white - the only thing I confuse them with at a distance are pelicans - which have black wingtips - and that crazy pouch bill.

Ducks are the ones with the duckbills. They are smaller than either geese or swans but they are still pretty big. Our smallest Manitoba duck is the green-winged teal which is still averages 35 cm long (or just over a foot long) much easier to observe and photograph than the smaller birds. In the spring, ducks are in 'breeding plumage'. This makes it much easier to identify which duck you are looking at as breeding plumage is generally pretty flashy. Mallards were the number two most observed species in Manitoba last year - and the number one in the world. This may have something to do with how tolerant this duck is of people - and their willingness to be hand-fed. (you know you shouldn't....) In 2021, we saw 17 species of the 20 or so species of ducks observed in the Winnipeg region in April-May.

Geese are the middle sized group in the three - and our geese observations are dominated by the Canada Goose - our most frequently observed species overall. Canada Geese are grazers and enjoy the large stretches of mown grass that we feel are essential to much of our communal urban landscape.

Less than two weeks to go....


More reading

Publicado el 17 de abril de 2022 por marykrieger marykrieger | 0 comentarios | Deja un comentario

added a new post to the City Nature Challenge: Winnpeg Region - less than two weeks to go

Publicado el 17 de abril de 2022 por marykrieger marykrieger | 0 comentarios | Deja un comentario

18 de abril de 2022

10 days to the start of this years Nature Challenge

This years nature challenge is only 10 days away - you remember the drill from last year - gather observations (photos or recordings) and upload to iNaturalist - find as many wild organisms as you can in the four days in Winnipeg and its surrounding area.

Hop on over to this year's Winnipeg Region project and click on the 'join' button to get in on the fun :)
https://inaturalist.ca/projects/city-nature-challenge-2022-winnipeg-region-mb-canada

Publicado el 18 de abril de 2022 por marykrieger marykrieger | 0 comentarios | Deja un comentario

20 de abril de 2022

Manitoba Botanists Big Year 2022 goes live

Inspired by the news story linked below, Diana Bizecki Robson challenged the Native Plants of Manitoba facebook group to do the 1,000 plant challenge.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/kitchener-waterloo/waterloo-region-naturalist-1000-plant-species-1.6415389?fbclid=IwAR0Z1raI1zY2WiO3BR9qhmo83_xdgfvj8_sLILnrZWBT3uZDYpzKxuRsgH8

Though iNaturalist is not mentioned by name in the article - I sure recognize all the people interviewed from their participation there - many of them have helped me out with confirming/correcting my identifications of plants observed here in Manitoba. The current Ontario big year project is here...https://inaturalist.ca/projects/2022-ontario-botanists-big-year

I have made a similar project for Manitoba. Join the project to have your plant kingdom observations added to the event. The event runs from Jan 1 to dec 31 so any observations you have previously made from earlier in the year will also count once you add them. We are now at 4 species. Ready, set, go!

https://inaturalist.ca/projects/manitoba-botanists-big-year-2022

Publicado el 20 de abril de 2022 por marykrieger marykrieger | 1 comentario | Deja un comentario

23 de abril de 2022

Sounds of Spring

Looks like it is shaping up to be a cool and somewhat damp weekend for our nature challenge this year. With predicted temperatures cooler than 10 degrees Celsius, the likelihood of seeing flying insects is low. On the plus side, I expect to be finding a lot less ticks - Yay!

Spring migration is always interesting to observe and there is no shortage of wet spots for waterfowl to pause here before attempting to go further north. Early nesters like crows and peregrine falcons are already involved in setting up their territories and improving their nesting sites. Recording a few calls to add to your crow photos will help identifiers feel more certain about proposing an id.

If you have never tried adding a sound observation, this is an ideal time of year to start. Many species assert their presence to their fellows with distinctive noises often at pretty high volume to attract mates and defend territory. They tend to stay in one spot and make the noise over and over again - which gives you time to get organized.

The simplest method from a technical viewpoint is to use the iNaturalist phone app. Choose 'Observe' and then 'record sound' and you are on your way. The hard part is no edit. Its pretty good if the target sound is pretty loud, pretty predictable and you can get the rest of the world to be be quiet - or at least quieter than the sound you are trying to capture. I suggest Canada Geese for your first attempts - particularly that situation where there are a pair on the grass and the male is yelling repeatedly at top volume at 1 minute intervals.

For less of an adrenalin filled experience, you can record longer captures of sound and then later back in the comfort of your interior space, edit out the bits that you want to use for observation. You can use your phone or camera's video recording capability, or get an inexpensive handheld microphone. Outdoor recordings generally benefit from the addition of a fluffy fake fur cover over the mike to help reduce wind noise. Lots of DIY help out there for those. I generally make sure I take a photo at the same time as I record a sound observation - even it is not of the thing I am listening to. That way I will have the geo-tag from the photo to use for the location of the sound observation. I don't generally record more than a few minutes at a time as it makes the files easier to deal with later.

Once you have your recording on your computer, you can use Audacity, a free, open source, cross-platform audio software to pick out the pieces that you like. Its a bit of a learning curve, but you don't need to know how to use all its features to be successful and the documentation is pretty helpful.

My general process boils down to the following.

  1. Open the sound file in Audacity.
  2. Switch from waveform view to spectrogram view - this makes it easier to see the individual sound sequences made by the different organisms
  3. Press play and listen to the whole thing making notes of where the 'good' bits are
  4. Use the selection tool to isolate a 'good bit' and play just the selected section.
  5. export the selected section as a WAV file
  6. upload it as an observation
  7. after it is uploaded listen to it on the inaturalist website. If I cannot hear the sound from the uploaded file - I delete the observation.

Here's an article with instructions for using Audacity to add audio to observations on eBird that you might also find helpful. Note that iNaturalist does not follow the eBird conventions for the initial 3 second buffer or the use of voice announcements. It does show you how to normalize your file which may reduce the number of times you use my step 7. :)

Today we have audio recordings of 195 different species in Manitoba. Looking forward to hearing what is found next.

Have fun experimenting!

Research grade observations with sound recordings from Manitoba

Publicado el 23 de abril de 2022 por marykrieger marykrieger | 2 comentarios | Deja un comentario