City Nature Challenge 2018-- Day 3

Yesterday was a big day, by the numbers. I hit 54 observations in a single location, then added another observation elsewhere later for a day's total of 55. I hadn't been checking the leaderboard during the challenge, but I did yesterday and out of curiosity checked the ranking of local observers. To my shock I was #16 in both total observations and species in the Houston area! I'd dropped to #20 the last time I checked. I'm disappointed that more of my species haven't been confirmed or observations ID'd, since species is what determines which city wins, but I figure that everyone is out there observing, rather than identifying right now, so the species numbers won't really settle until some days after the challenge is over. The added grace period for making IDs is really a good idea, and makes this whole challenge thing less crazy.

I try not to duplicate observations from day to day and place to place during the challenge, but there are a few duplications in my observations, either because I wasn't sure if it was the same species I'd observered before, or I'm so punchy from making so many observations in so many days that I don't remember what I've seen from day to day, or because I thought I could get better ID photos the second time around than the first observation. But still, I think there shouldn't be more than 3-4 duplications all total...though in retrospect I'm wondering if there shouldn't be more duplications, a lot more duplications. Here's my reasoning: if the whole idea is to document species in an area and the area is as staggeringly large was what's currently mapped out as "greater Houston" ---and the whole idea is to provide researchers with more data points, then it stands to reason that logging a specific species in multiple locations across the huge area mapped out would make more sense scientifically, than only logging a species once in a single location, even if you see it in other locations much further away. The area mapped out for Houston covers hundreds of square miles from the Woodlands in the north to Galveston Island in the south; it goes as far west as Lake Jackson and further northwest. (Off the top of my head I can't recall the easterly limit.) There are a number of discreet ecosystems within that vast area and while some species are no doubt unique to a small area, others may make incursions into an assortment of areas.

I'm going to stick to trying to log only species that I haven't logged for the challenge before, on this the last day of the challenge, but I'm strongly considering returning to some of the locations I visited for the challenge after the challenge is over and trying to make a more complete survey. Not complete. (I'm not that good!) But document everything I reasonably can. I'm already looking ahead to next year's City Nature Challenge in the sense that by then I'll have a year's worth of iNat observations under my belt, and have more species confirmed. Just since joining iNat a couple of weeks ago my knowledge of species has grown tremendously. With all I've learned in two weeks, imagine what I can learn in the next year! I have attached the day's observations to this post.

Posted on April 30, 2018 02:12 PM by gulfcoasttoad