Discord iNaturalist Server's Journal

We're now accepting registration on Discord for the Team Moths vs. Team Moss bioblitz from April 28 through May 1. If you'd like to participate, drop in and sign up!

Blitz registration is now open. Our theme is "March of the Ants". Our goal is to topple our own record number of observations and species observed by a single blitz team, held by the Lemon-tipped Helicopters. Together, we can do it!

The event runs for the entire month of March.

If you haven't been on Discord for a while, we miss you! Get back on the server and head over to the #role-menus channel to join this blitz.

https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/march-of-the-ants-discord-inaturalist-2023-blitz

Get ready for the next iNaturalist Discord bioblitz! December 14 through January 5, Team Isopods vs. Team Amphipods will compete to find the most observations and species.

Since we have members in both hemispheres, our banner images are a cool green Rockweed Isopod (Pentidotea wosnesenskii) from the north, where winter is arriving, and a warm Red Sea Flea (Amaryllis philatelica) from the south, which is just starting to enjoy summer.

Team projects:

• https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/team-isopods-discord-inaturalist-2022-blitz
• https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/team-amphipods-discord-inaturalist-2022-blitz

If you want to sign up, join the Discord if you're not already there and follow the instructions posted in our announcements channel.

We're gearing up for another blitz and it's just around the corner, from September 2 through September 12. Team names are "Team Kingbirds" vs. "Team King Skimmers".

Once again, we have side quests to keep things interesting:

1. Galls - Top observations & species of galls.

   • Just add the annotation Evidence of Presence: Gall

2. Royal names - Top species with a royal name

   • e.g. king, queen, monarch, etc. are present in the common name
   • Just add the tag royal
3. Orthoptera - Top observations & species of Orthoptera

Team projects:

• https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/team-kingbirds-discord-inaturalist-2022-blitz
• https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/team-king-skimmers-discord-inaturalist-2022-blitz

Please drop into the Discord to sign up if you haven't already. Have fun!

Friday, July 22, in the wee hours of the morning (midnight in your time zone) our July blitz starts. So get out there on your porch and find a moth or something. Hey, speaking of moths, did you know that this blitz overlaps with National Moth Week, from July 23 through 31? Your moth observations for those days can count for both events!

We've been asked about side quests for this blitz, and are still in discussion about what those will be. Stay tuned for more announcements.

Haven't signed up for a July blitz team yet? Visit the role-menus channel on Discord, choose a team, and we'll add you.

The votes are in, and the iNat Discord members have chosen team names for the upcoming July 22 to August 1 bioblitz. Drop into the server and sign up! The projects competing this month are:

Team Kiwi Birds - https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/team-kiwi-birds-discord-inaturalist-2022-blitz
vs.
Team Kiwi Fruits - https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/team-kiwi-fruits-discord-inaturalist-2022-blitz

We hope you've enjoyed this blitz. In some parts of the world, it is over already, and for the rest of us, we're just heading into the afternoon / evening of the last day for observations. Afterwards, you'll have ample time to upload, annotate, and tag everything. Please everyone pitch in and help identify as many of the blitz observations as you can!

Remember, our June 2022 bioblitz starts just as soon as today is over, at midnight in your time zone, Friday, June 17. That's just a handful of hours away in some parts of the world!

Since this is a long one, ending at the end of the day on July 4, again at midnight in your time zone, we've planned several side quests.

1. Lepidoptera (Butterflies and Moths)

• Observe as many Lepidoptera and as many species of them as you can.

2. Odonata (Dragonflies and Damselflies)

• Observe as many Odonata and as many species of them as you can.

3. Diptera (Flies)

• Observe as many Diptera and as many species of them as you can.

4. Iconic taxa

• For each of the Iconic Taxa we will count each team member who has at least one.
• That is, only the per-team tally of observers matters, so each competitor should try to find all 13!

5. Fruiting plants

• Annotate your observation Plant Phenology: Fruiting if it is in that stage.

6. Rainbow names

• Tag your observation rainbow if it has a colour in the name.
• e.g. Azure Bluet, but sorry, that still only counts as one!
• Or maybe you've found Azure Bluet instead? Cool! That scores both as a rainbow name and for the the Odonata side quest!

Observations at night

• Tag your observation night if you observed it after dark - roughly speaking, after sunset and before sunrise.

Thanks, as usual, go to @nbatzdofff for all of our artwork for the blitzes! For this blitz, they have also provided this graphic to remind you what to look for:

We're now accepting team members on Discord for our upcoming June Server Blitz (and it's a long blitz, too!) The dates will be June 17, 2022 - July 4 2022, from midnight to midnight in your specific time zone. That's 18 whole days of blitz!

The teams are:
Banana-tree Nightfighters https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/banana-tree-nightfighters-discord-inaturalist-2022-blitz
vs
Lemon-tipped Helicopters https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/lemon-tipped-helicopters-discord-inaturalist-2022-blitz

To join a team, if you're not yet a part of our Discord community, first join with https://discord.gg/uskv2yx and we'll orient you. If you're already a member of our Discord server, then sign up via the June blitz menu in #role-menus.

We are planning to announce any future blitzes in this project journal so that our community members have more chances to sign up and participate. To receive future updates from this page about our blitzes, press the green "Join" button, then set "receive journal updates" to yes.

When you "join" the blitz on the server, a moderator adds you to the "must be observed by" rules list; "joining" the project on iNat is a separate action; notice this also adds the link to this project for all your observations; same for each blitz project you "join".

Soon, we the mod team will be collecting identification tutorials made by the server's members. We'll be compiling them in this journal post.

Come back later!