August 15, 2023

Bioblitz/Meetup | August 26 | 8:30 am | EcoLab at Carpenter Train Station

Hey everyone,

I was thinking of doing another fall bioblitz like last year, but @allisonrhoughton alerted me to a bioblitz happening on August 26th at the Ecolab at the Carpenter Train Station. I think we can make it do double duty and have it be a fun meetup like last year (but hopefully without the rain). I'm hoping to see a lot of you there - it's been a while. Here are the details from Allison:

"Volunteer with us to do a Biodiversity Survey at the EcoLab!
Saturday, August 26th from 8:30-11:30am

Calling all naturalists, citizen scientists, and neighbors of all ages! We are looking for volunteers to help us get a biodiversity baseline for the Ecolab space at the SEPTA Carpenter Train Station. We'll be using the free app iNaturalist.org to take pictures and identify as many species as we can. Knowing what species are present gives us insights into the ecological health of the landscape and ideas on how we might strategically increase biodiversity and resilience over time. Come join this exciting opportunity!"

Note to bring your own water/hat/sunscreen, etc... Also there are no restrooms on site just so folks know!

Please tag any other iNatters in the area who might be interested. See you there!

Posted on August 15, 2023 12:56 PM by navin_sasikumar navin_sasikumar | 1 comment | Leave a comment

April 21, 2023

The City Nature Challenge starts in one week!

Hey everyone!

It's that time of year again when I tag you all to remind you to participate in the City Nature Challenge! This year's challenge runs from April 28-May 1. You just need to take photos during this phase. You have until May 7th to upload and ID your observations.

Like previous years, the challenge area is the county of Philadelphia plus all counties that directly share a border with Philadelphia. This includes Montgomery, Bucks, and Delaware counties in PA and Camden, Gloucester, and Burlington counties in NJ. During the CNC last year, the Greater Philadelphia Area did pretty well with just under 20k observations (yet again), 2190 species, and 905 observers (will we finally go past 1k observers this year?).

I'm tagging all of you here because you are one of the top observers in our region (either all-time or recently) and we would love to have your help in making even more observations during this 4 day period at the end of the month. And to make sure we get as many species as possible, I've made a simple website that shows you all the species that have been reported in our region during April and May, but not yet seen during the CNC: http://targets.cncphilly.org/ (you can currently see the species we missed last year, but I'll be updating it for this year's CNC soon). The species are organized in descending order of how many observations have been made for that species. As people make observations, they will fall off that list every 30 minutes or so.

We would also love your help in spreading the word about the CNC among your family and friends. You can also tag them in the comments here.

Here are some useful links with more info:
Philly CNC website: https://cncphilly.org/
Philly CNC iNat project: https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/city-nature-challenge-2023-greater-philadelphia-area
Main CNC website: http://citynaturechallenge.org/
Last year's results: https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/city-nature-challenge-2022

Thanks for documenting the biodiversity of our region and we hope you'll help us during the CNC as well.

PS: I know some of you aren't in the area anymore or are away during the CNC, but we'd still appreciate it if you can spread the word to everyone you know. Thank you!

@brennafarrell @linkmdavis @josephthebirder @keimwj @jstippick @johnnysap @conboy @jmole @srall @annebekker @mbwildlife @bugsandbirds @mattparr @pachogut @maricel-patino @brianwhite @nmacelko2 @seahound @danefroymson @robizzy @sammakler @kmv @augien @naturejeanne @michaelmorris @jenovak @dougwechsler @brittany101 @zroskoph @mertensia @michaelpirrello @kdstutzman @georgemushkal @jason310 @mikehannisian @phillymycobeth @evelyntomology @maryah @that_hippie_chick @laurenhallden @robm2 @arisingunder @chippop @clearwing_moth @adventurehiker @josephnaturalist @prolleston @ctiemann16 @wakk4457 @mahenry @birdzilla @galecannon @mycofreak @bughaven @bert_filemyr @tommymorris17 @macneal @mail540 @rpblack @thereuonema

Posted on April 21, 2023 10:36 PM by navin_sasikumar navin_sasikumar | 16 comments | Leave a comment

August 22, 2022

Meetup/Bioblitz - 9 am | September 11 | Andorra Meadow

Hey everyone,

I'm thinking of having a meetup/bioblitz on September 11th at 9 am at Andorra Meadow. Mostly a fun event where we can get to know each other and also see what birds, insects, plants, and other wildlife we can find. We might hang out for about 3 hours, but stay as long as you can/want. Let me know if you plan to come in case I need to reschedule due to bad weather and you want to be alerted. Otherwise, feel free to just show up. Also, please tag any other iNatters in the area who might be interested.

Posted on August 22, 2022 12:13 PM by navin_sasikumar navin_sasikumar | 22 comments | Leave a comment

April 24, 2022

The City Nature Challenge starts Friday!

Hey everyone!

The City Nature Challenge is back again this year from April 29-May 2! Like previous years, the challenge area is the county of Philadelphia plus all counties that directly share a border with Philadelphia. This includes Montgomery, Bucks, and Delaware counties in PA and Camden, Gloucester, and Burlington counties in NJ. During the CNC last year, the Greater Philadelphia Area did pretty well with just under 20k observations, 2219 species, and 966 observers (let's get more than 1000 people participating this year!). Congratulations to @annebekker who became the first person to cross 400 species during a Philly CNC. And just like last year, a shoutout to @srall who participated in both the NYC and Philly CNC efforts and ended up with the 2nd most observations in both Philly and NYC! Can anybody beat Anne's and Sara's totals this year?

This year, we have some group activities like guided walks (most require registration) but we are still encouraging individuals or small groups to go out on their own and make observations. The CNC is not being pitched as a competition again this year, but rather as a collaborative effort where cities around the world work together to document biodiversity in urban areas. But individual cities are encouraged to do mini-competitions with each other.

I'm tagging all of you here because you are one of the top observers in our region (either all-time or recently) and we would love to have your help in making even more observations during this 4 day period at the end of the month. And to make sure we get as many species as possible, I've made a simple website that shows you all the species that have been reported in our region during April and May, but not yet seen during the CNC: http://targets.cncphilly.org/. The species are organized in descending order of how many observations have been made for that species. As people make observations, they will fall off that list every 30 minutes or so.

We would also love your help in spreading the word about the CNC among your family and friends. You can also tag them in the comments here.

Here are some useful links with more info:
Philly CNC website: https://cncphilly.org/
Philly CNC iNat project: https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/city-nature-challenge-2022-greater-philadelphia-area
Main CNC website: http://citynaturechallenge.org/
Last year's results: https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/city-nature-challenge-2021

Thanks for documenting the biodiversity of our region and we hope you'll help us during the CNC as well.

PS: I know some of you aren't in the area anymore or are away during the CNC, but we'd still appreciate it if you can spread the word to everyone you know. Thank you!

@brennafarrell @josephthebirder @linkmdavis @keimwj @johnnysap @conboy @annebekker @srall @bugsandbirds @nmacelko2 @brianwhite @ginsengandsoon @danefroymson @maricel-patino @robizzy @jstippick @michaelmorris @seahound @kmv @augien @sammakler @brittany101 @jenovak @mbwildlife @jmole @zroskoph @pachogut @kdstutzman @laurenhallden @robm2 @michaelpirrello @mikehannisian @joedurrance @prolleston @prolleston @jawnattenborough @mertensia @galecannon @mahenry @naturejeanne @clearwing_moth @dsponsler @that_hippie_chick @adventurehiker @jason310 @mycofreak @jhbinaturalist @bmac922 @birdzilla @georgemushkal @tkr421 @sgreene13 @cherz13 @gracejeschke @raincro @maryah @kellyfrank98 @mjacobs @chippop @anne302 @jas651fcm @rayray @ryan117 @godshallcs @stretchwell @arisingunder

Posted on April 24, 2022 06:32 PM by navin_sasikumar navin_sasikumar | 20 comments | Leave a comment

April 11, 2021

The City Nature Challenge is less than 3 weeks away! April 30-May 3

Hey everyone!

The City Nature Challenge is back again this year from April 30-May 3! Like previous years, the challenge area is the county of Philadelphia plus all counties that directly share a border with Philadelphia. This includes Montgomery, Bucks, and Delaware counties in PA and Camden, Gloucester, and Burlington counties in NJ. During the CNC last year, the Greater Philadelphia Area did really well with over 23k observations (6th place if it was a competition), 1847 species (12th place), and 854 observers (11th place). Special shoutout to @srall who joined the Philly effort for the first time last year and was first in both observations (1740) and species (370) locally. Sara also had the 7th most number of observations among more the 43k observers around the world. That's an amazing effort, Sara, and we hope you join us again this year.

While COVID-19 still puts a dampener on things, vaccination rates are increasing and things are opening back up again. So this time around we have some group activities like guided walks (most require registration) but we are still encouraging individuals or small groups to go out on their own and make observations wherever they are comfortable. The CNC is not being pitched as a competition again this year, but rather as a collaborative effort where cities around the world work together to document biodiversity in urban areas. But individual cities are encouraged to do mini-competitions with each other.

I'm tagging all of you here because you are one of the top observers in our region (either all-time or recently) and we would love to have your help in making even more observations during this 4 day period at the end of the month. And to make sure we get as many species as possible, I've made a simple website that shows you all the species that have been reported in our region during April and May, but not yet seen during the CNC: http://targets.cncphilly.org/. The species are organized in descending order of how many observations have been made for that species. As people make observations, they will fall off that list every 30 minutes or so.

We would also love your help in spreading the word about the CNC among your family and friends. You can also tag them in the comments here.

Here are some useful links with more info:
Philly CNC website: https://cncphilly.org/
Philly CNC iNat project: https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/city-nature-challenge-2021-greater-philadelphia-area
Main CNC website: http://citynaturechallenge.org/
Last year's results: https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/city-nature-challenge-2020

We also have some prize this year thanks to our partner organizations: https://cncphilly.org/events/prizes/

Thanks for documenting the biodiversity of our region and we hope you'll help us during the CNC as well.

@josephthebirder @keimwj @brennafarrell @johnnysap @linkmdavis @conboy @annebekker @srall @robizzy @danefroymson @ginsengandsoon @nmacelko2 @brianwhite @brittany101 @maricel-patino @jenovak @bugsandbirds @zroskoph @kmv @augien @prolleston @sammakler @michaelmorris @robm2 @kdstutzman @joedurrance @laurenhallden @mikehannisian @clearwing_moth @bmac922 @michaelpirrello @gracejeschke @jawnattenborough @sgreene13 @mycofreak @jason310 @tkr421 @ryan117 @sandykeller @bobby23 @adventurehiker @stretchwell @georgemushkal @seahound @ctiemann16 @ahimsavet @that_hippie_chick @birdzilla @milkweedhunter @jas651fcm @go2nature @kristym @godshallcs @rayray @colinpurrington @maxcavitch @cliffh @jonibaum @katesnowbird @javiehweg @leroytabb @mertensia @tkirk304 @kellyfrank98 @debbeer @jstippick @phillyphantailphan @anne302 @bull1 @jeffmollenhauer @linda142 @yan_tonz @tb_wildlife_photography @mahenry @galecannon @raincro @pachogut @cherz13 @talkstoplants @sammakler @dwiebe @hisongbird @naturejeanne

Posted on April 11, 2021 05:51 PM by navin_sasikumar navin_sasikumar | 15 comments | Leave a comment

April 18, 2020

The City Nature Challenge is less than a week away! April 24-27

Hey everyone!

The City Nature Challenge is back again this year from April 24-27! While COVID-19 has put a dampener on our plans, the main CNC organizers, as well as many other cities, are going ahead with the CNC but in a very limited way. This time around we don't have any group activities like guided walks and bioblitzes and are instead encouraging individuals or small family units to go out on their own and make observations in their own houses, backyards, neighborhoods and where/when it is safe to do so, parks and woodlands (while using masks and maintaining proper social distancing guidelines, of course). The CNC is also not being pitched as a competition this year, but rather as a collaborative effort where cities around the world work together to document biodiversity in urban areas.

Like last year, the challenge area is the county of Philadelphia plus all counties that directly share a border with Philadelphia. This includes Montgomery, Bucks and Delaware counties in PA and Camden, Gloucester and Burlington counties in NJ. During the competition last year, the Greater Philadelphia Area did pretty well coming in the low 20s for both observations and species but what we did really well in was the number of people participating (thanks to all of you!) coming in 16th place, and beating NYC with over 500 people making at least one observation.

I'm tagging you here because you are one of the top observers in our region (either all time or recently) and we would love to have your help in making even more observations during this 4 day period next weekend. And to make sure we get as many species as possible, I've made a simple website that shows you all the species that have been reported in our region during April and May, but not yet seen during the CNC: http://targets.cncphilly.org/. The species are organized in descending order of how many observations have been made for that species. As people make observations, they will fall of that list every 30 minutes or so.

We would also love your help in spreading the word about the CNC among your family and friends. You can also tag them in the comments here.

Here are some useful links with more info:
Philly CNC website: https://cncphilly.org/
Philly CNC iNat project: https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/city-nature-challenge-2020-greater-philadelphia-area
Main CNC website: http://citynaturechallenge.org/
Last year's results: https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/city-nature-challenge-2019

Thanks for documenting the biodiversity of our region and we hope you'll help us during the CNC as well.

@josephthebirder @keimwj @johnnysap @brennafarrell @danefroymson @robizzy @zroskoph @prolleston @annebekker @brittany101 @joedurrance @nmacelko2 @conboy @augien @kmv @clearwing_moth @jenovak @mikehannisian @bobby23 @srall @michaelpirrello @gracejeschke @milkweedhunter @michaelmorris @kdstutzman @sgreene13 @robm2 @sandykeller @jason310 @jonibaum @stretchwell @brianwhite @colinpurrington @bugsandbirds @jstippick @newlingristmill @bmac922 @katesnowbird @kristym @go2nature @mycofreak @godshallcs @maricel-patino @darthlobster @cliffh @mark_fallon @choess @vaskointeractv @tanyadapkey @sgalen @linda142 @yan_tonz @timothymswartz @khenderson @krisalis @tonycrow @seahound @katedillard @cathybru @sammakler @bborgmannwinter @javiehweg @variegata @jawnattenborough @phillyphantailphan @jason310

Posted on April 18, 2020 03:47 PM by navin_sasikumar navin_sasikumar | 15 comments | Leave a comment

December 25, 2019

iNat Search Query Builder

A few weeks ago, I was trying to do some advanced searching using the Explore page and it was a bit tedious getting the queries right. I followed some of the suggestions in the forum and was able to do it, but I wanted something easier so that I didn't have to memorize the search terms and jump back and forth trying to get place and taxon ids for the query.

I decided to build a simple advanced search page so that I could run these queries. It's far from complete and there's probably plenty of bugs, but it does what I want it to. Date and project filters are missing currently, for example, but I wanted to focus on some of the main things that the explore page was missing. It's also tacked on to the CNC project that I did earlier in the year for the City Nature Challenge, but I might split it up into a separate thing some day. Anyway, here is the link for anyone else who might want to give it a spin.

http://targets.cncphilly.org/search

I didn't focus too much on the search results display since it's mostly a query builder. It does give you some quick feedback to make sure your query is mostly right, but it provides links to iNat so that you can use the different views like Map and List, the Species tab, etc so that I didn't have to rebuild it all.

You can search for multiple species, places or users and also exlude multiples of those. Here are some example queries you can see:

All Bees except Bumble Bees anywhere in the world

All Observations seen in Philadelphia and Delaware counties in Pennsylvania

All observations in Pennsylvania but not in Philadelphia and Delaware counties

All species seen by me in Pennsylvania but not in Philadelphia

All observtions I've ID'd for others

All my observations that have the Alive/Dead annotation

All my observations that have the Dead as the Alive/Dead annotation value

All observation is PA that have the dead or alive observation field but not the annotation

All observation where the observation field Interaction->Visited flower of has a value of Swamp milkweed

That's just a sampling of some of the queries I've run. Maybe it will be useful for someone else until the iNat team finishes rebuilding their Explore page

Posted on December 25, 2019 11:16 PM by navin_sasikumar navin_sasikumar | 0 comments | Leave a comment

February 3, 2019

The City Nature Challenge is coming to Philly! April 26-29.

Hey everyone!

Philadelphia (and all counties that share a direct border with the city of Philadelphia - DelCo, MontoCo, Bucks, Camden, Gloucester & Burlington) is competing in the City Nature Challenge for the first time this year and we could use your help to win! The City Nature Challenge (CNC) is a multi-day bioblitz type competition using iNaturalist where cities around the world compete to see who can observe the most species, make the most observations or get the most engaged residents. The CNC started out in 2016 as a competition between SF and LA, expanded to 16 cities across the US in 2017, and then went worldwide in 2018 with 68 cities. In 2019 we are competing against 130+ cities all over the world. While we are late to the party, I'm sure we can put up a good show in our first year and beat Pittsburgh!

I'm tagging you here because you are one of the top observers in our region and we cannot win without your help. You can either go out and iNat as you usually do, or you can let me know if you'd like to lead a trip to your favorite haunts and we'll get that up on our website (https://cncphilly.org/) and social media. After the main event, there is a second period from April 30-May 5th where we can go into the Identify section of iNat and ID observations made during the main challenge period so that we can boost our species totals. If you know anyone else who might be interested in participating in the CNC, please spread the word. You can also tag them in the comments.

Here are some useful links with more info:
Philly CNC website: https://cncphilly.org/
Philly CNC iNat project: https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/city-nature-challenge-2019-greater-philadelphia-area
Main CNC website: http://citynaturechallenge.org/
Last year's results: https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/city-nature-challenge-2018

Thanks for documenting the biodiversity of our region and we hope you'll help us during the CNC as well.

@keimwj @johnnysap @prolleston @danefroymson @robizzy_ttf @ginsengandsoon @clearwing_moth @srall @sgreene13 @sandykeller @kmv @milkweedhunter @abingtonfriends @katesnowbird @mwronski @colinpurrington @gveitg @nightjar @julieg44 @jason310 @linda142 @khenderson @petec @wanderingmogwai @jenniferwhanson @joedurrance @choess @gracejeschke @go2nature @silverlake5377 @bobby23 @ojonathan @jenlafty @kbullock @missusjenn @rhidenz @csmitelli @schotistr8 @marcsilver @mylittlebackyard @sanderson1044 @sgalen @danielatha @jas651fcm @vaskointeractv @michaelpirrello @kassafras88 @sw4ll0w741l @mwr261 @jfulmer @jencross @digitalmirage @ryan117 @weberbirding @ldjaffe @yan_tonz @birdnation123 @nyholma13 @brittany101 @hollycybelle @tonycrow @rmargiot

Posted on February 3, 2019 08:25 PM by navin_sasikumar navin_sasikumar | 18 comments | Leave a comment

July 4, 2018

Growth of iNaturalist in Philadelphia County

Ever since we did our bioblitz in April 2018, I've been curious to see what the growth of iNaturalist usage in Philly looks like. So I pulled some data together and made some graphs.

Cumulative totals

The following three graphs show the cumulative totals at the end of each month. You can see thye have been steadily climbing with occasional spurts that boost up the numbers We've seen a pretty strong growth since April of 2018.

Observations Added By Month


Observations Seen By Month


Some Other Fun Graphs

Monthly Statistics

The following three graphs show the total observations by month across the years. June has very high numbers mostly from this year due to the growth we've recently seen, so it's not very useful data, but still fun to look at.

Species Statistics

Graphs showing the distrubition of spcies acorss some iconic taxa.

Posted on July 4, 2018 09:42 PM by navin_sasikumar navin_sasikumar | 2 comments | Leave a comment

June 17, 2018