City Nature Challenge 2020: Cape Town's Boletim

With 12 hours of identifications left for us it is time to move onto Phase III

There is still a little mopping up to be done from Phase 1 (Unidentified and Vaguely ID'd observations), but it is not really important at this stage.
• No IDs yet - only make an ID if you recognize it - otherwise leave it without an ID. - 398 observations
• Useless IDs (too vague) - can you make these finer? To family, genus or species?. - 353 observations

We also appear to have run out of steam on Phase 2 (Getting IDs down to species level).
This is probably because many of the observations remaining cannot be refined (e.g. some invertebrates, and among plants - for instance Bougainvillea where ID to hybrid parents is not trivial). But we can still make a serious dent in these - they amount to 34% of our observations. If you wish to tackle these, then please use this url, and add your tribe, family, or genus in the species box to access these.
• IDs needing refined to species level - 11,633 observations
THIS STILL REMAINS A HIGH PRIORITY

However, our main focus must now shift to Phase 3 (Research Grade). These are the observations that need to get to research grade. They have been identified, but these need to be checked and agreed to. With 3,968 observations, they amount to 10% of our data. Because they are so few we wont split them into groups - just add your taxon name (e.g. birds, Erica or spiders) to the species box to narrow your group.
• IDs needing confirmation for Research Grade - 3,968

We probably wont have time for Phase IV (Checking), which is checking that
-a- all the Research Grade IDs to make sure that erroneous IDs (e.g. Californian species via the AI species recognition system) are done and
-b- all the Planted observations are marked as such.
The easiest way to check is to use this link, and to add your group.
• Quick Check on species
If there are dubious species - they will hopefully be at the tail end of the list - you can see their observations by clicking on the text "observations" on the bottom of the picture card. This opens up a page showing the actual observations which you can then process by clicking on them.

If there are too many, in the filter box, click on the "Identify" option on the bottom of the filter box to open the Identify tool.

The end is near. The midnight deadline looms.
Thanks for a magnificent effort. An especial thanks to those who did so much: Please see them here and give them a round of applause as they finish off this task! https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/city-nature-challenge-2020-cape-town?tab=identifiers

Another City Nature Challenge under the belt.

Dallas Fort Worth put in a noble challenge at the end, and came within 700 observations of us. But, with America in bed, we remain top for number of observations with 34,147 observations.
Very well done Cape Town.

Our top species are: (see them here)
1
322 Portulacaria afra Common Spekboom
269 Apis mellifera Western Honey Bee
266 Afrogecko porphyreus Marbled Leaf-toed Gecko
258 Cornu aspersum Brown Garden Snail alien
246 Tecomaria capensis Cape Honeysuckle
5
211 Hibiscus rosa-sinensis Chinese Hibiscus
206 Crassula ovata Jade Stonecrop
199 Aloe arborescens Krantz Aloe
191 Strelitzia reginae Common Bird-of-paradise Flower
187 Cotyledon orbiculata Pig Ears
10
167 Streptopelia senegalensis Laughing Dove
166 Passer melanurus Cape Sparrow
163 Cinnyris chalybeus Southern Double-collared Sunbird
161 Streptopelia semitorquata Red-eyed Dove
146 Clivia miniata Natal Lily
15
143 Plumbago auriculata Blue Plumbago
143 Plectranthus neochilus Mosquito Bush
138 Zosterops virens Cape White-Eye
129 Lavandula dentata French Lavender
124 Bradypodion pumilum Cape Dwarf Chameleon
20
124 Osteospermum moniliferum Bietou
119 Schinus terebinthifolia Brazilian Pepper
116 Citrus × limon Lemon
112 Bostrychia hagedash Hadeda Ibis
112 Salvia rosmarinus Rosemary
25

Of these only nine are indigenous to Cape Town. The rest are aliens. Can you list them?
The dominance of garden plants is to be expected with lockdown and people tied to their gardens, and especially some of the species being very popular for attracting birds and butterflies to our gardens.

Our top observers (listed those with 200+ observations) are:
1 jeremygilmore 834
2 lmossop 558
3 juleswood 543
4 tonyrebelo 499
5 penny21 368
6 cpt_cj 364
7 charmaineoxtoby 314
8 thomasashworth 308
9 carinalochner 292
10 anthonyhitchcock 290
11 dangerranger 279
12 gigilaidler 275
13 eileenvh 268
14 michellethomson 264
15 louise95 260
16 hwittridge 258
17 photogenie 258
18 phyllida 254
19 andrewstephenmorton 251
20 diveinn_capetown 250
21 muonmo 232
22 petrobotha 220
23 kari_cousins 214
24 bonganimnisi 212
25 daryldbs 206
26 rion_c 204
27 melodibui22 202
28 teyounce 200

Again, due to the lockdown, no one got over 1000 observations (just how much can you do in a garden?). But several hundred observations from a garden is no mean achievement Thank you everyone. I trust that you now appreciate your garden and its wildlife like never before! And it is quite OK to continue recording from your garden on iNaturalist - please do!

The top recorders of species (more than 100 species from their gardens) are:
1 jeremygilmore 335
2 lmossop 294
3 anthonyhitchcock 237
4 juleswood 227
5 charmaineoxtoby 200
6 penny21 191
7 cpt_cj 184
8 carinalochner 177
9 photogenie 173
10 hwittridge 170
11 thomasashworth 159
12 muonmo 158
13 tonyrebelo 149
14 louise95 141
15 bonganimnisi 140
16 kari_cousins 140
17 petrobotha 132
18 eileenvh 129
19 diveinn_capetown 128
20 michellethomson 124
21 faylinder 120
22 teyounce 118
23 dangerranger 117
24 daryldbs 117
25 suley19 110
26 phyllida 108
27 melodibui22 107
28 liza81 102
29 louisvw 102

These results are little biased by a few observers who were able to get out - because they live on big estates, or were on patrol duty. However, there are some really amazing garden counts. Who would have guessed that many of our gardens have more than 10 species of butterflies (see them) present, and nearly as many bee (see them) and fly (see them) species. And I am certain that dozens of gardeners discovered their chameleons for the first time ever. Unfortunately our bees, flies and spiders (see them) have a very low identification rate: it appears that most cannot be identified below generic level, so we dont know our true species counts. Otherwise flies and bees would be in our top tally. I am sure that many people dipped out of species in their gardens (I missed Guinea Fowl, Carpenter Bee, Painted Lady, African Monarch, Leopard Toad, River Frog - see everything I dipped out on HERE - this compares the CNC2020 to past years for Mar-May in my garden) Note I added 109 new species to my garden in the CNC2020! - I am sure that you also discovered many new species in your garden!! Please dont stop recording them: why not make a garden project for your data (Hint: dont make a project, make a "Place" - but note you cannot hide your location if you decide to do this, so if privacy is a concern then this is not for you! - and iNat will not display species threatened by collecting! - at present this includes the Rainfrog and Golden Mole)

Many thanks to the tireless identifiers who worked solidly for a week helping identify our observations. These could be anywhere in the world, and indeed experts world-wide dipped in and helped out. We are especially grateful to them:
Here are those who made more than 400 identifications in Cape Town's lists:
1 jeremygilmore 8,024
2 tonyrebelo 4,816
3 rion_c 3,087
4 petrabroddle 2,648
5 alanhorstmann 2,431
6 venturefoth 1,458
7 rjpretor 1,307
8 fynbosphil 1,287
9 linkie 941
10 hvardaman 816
11 arboretum_amy 805
12 richardadcock 668
13 pieterwinter 655
14 dianastuder 602
15 colin25 586
16 alexiz 568
17 adamwelz 465
18 happyasacupcake 458
19 cheekychew 429
20 don_k 421
21 cliffdorse 402

Note that these totals do not include identifications on one's own observations: only those on other people's observations. So for many the total is a hundred or more additional identifications.

A few "did you knows"

• Scouts contributed 24% of our observations! That is a magnificent effort! Many Thanks!!
  We hope that you will continue to help out for the rest of the year with monitoring the Polyphagous Shothole Borer Beetles in your neighbourhoods, as well as contributing to the Chameleon, Rainfrog and Ant Atlasses in Cape Town. Dont forget to add your "Scouts SA" project, and if you want your group and patrol names.

• Garden Route has the second highest tally (after us, of course) of any city outside of the USA! Very well done guys!!
  

OK: now we sit and wait. The official results will be out later this afternoon.

With Lockdown a little more relaxed at Level 4, we can now go and monitor the Chameleons & PSHB in our neighbourhoods during "exercise time". Enjoy the fantastic weather, although perhaps it is time to start praying that we will get some rain?

Keep well and keep safe.
Your 2020 CNC organizing committee
(Aaniyah, Charmaine, Eleanor, Georgina, Ielhaam, Ismail, Julia, Kabelo, Kerry, Leighan, Megan, Natanya, Rupert, Sihle, Tony & Wendy)