City Nature Challenge 2020: Geelong's Boletim

07 de fevereiro de 2021

City Nature Challenge 2021

The City Nature Challenge is on again in 2021. It will run from Friday April 30th and runs until the end of Monday May 3rd. The review and identification period will continue to the end of Sunday May 9th.

Thank you for being a member of the Geelong CNC 2020 Project and contributing observations during last year’s event. I am writing to you now to let you know that the 2021 project and about the Geelong Project. We would appreciate your involvement again and ask that you join our project by clicking on the following link. https://inaturalist.ala.org.au/projects/city-nature-challenge-2021-geelong

It looks like the event will bigger this year with number of cities with over 400 locations confirmed as participating cities including 24 Australian. The locations are currently being loaded onto the master event project where worldwide progress can be monitored. https://inaturalist.ala.org.au/projects/city-nature-challenge-2021

Last year, Geelong performed well despite the COVID lockdown movement restrictions. We were third for observations in the ‘Cities below a million people’ category. Our region has a wide range of habitats and locations to visit. In 2020, 1282 species were observed and identified during the CNC BioBlitz. This is a great effort but as the biodiversity/species checklist in iNaturalist shows, there is plenty of upside for expansion of last year’s tallies. The 2021 event is a week later in the year and we were fortunate to have good weather in 2020 so lets hope by some miracle that a few fine days prevail in the first week of May thus time around.

We hope you are free to help this year and contribute some observation on one or more days of the event. It would be great to break the 6000 observations barrier!

For the Geelong region, we have the support of the City of Greater Geelong, Surf Coast Shire, Corangamite Catchment Management Authority, Great Ocean Road Coast and Parks Authority and the Bellarine Catchment Network to assist with promoting the bioblitz. With 139 observers last year, we are also hopeful to have more contributors in 2021 so if you are a member of Friends or Landcare Group, please spread the word.

By joining the City Nature Challenge 2021 Geelong Project, we can keep you up to date on event news and when underway you can monitor our region's progress as well as see yours and other’s observations.

Regards Rod Lowther

Posted on 07 de fevereiro de 2021, 11:47 PM by rover-rod rover-rod | 0 comentários | Deixar um comentário

14 de setembro de 2020

Great Southern BioBlitz 10 days to go - Invite to join GSB projects

The Great Southern BioBlitz is now only 10 days away. Commencing on the Friday 25th September and running until the end of Monday 28th September. Let's hope the weather is kind to us and maybe the regions will be in third Step towards relaxingCoronavirus movement restrictions by then, otherwise it is very much travel conditions as applied during the City Nature Challenge.

I thank you for your contribution back in April and hope you can join in the GSB.

Note the Geelong iNaturalist Project that will accumulate observation made during the event is https://inaturalist.ala.org.au/projects/great-southern-bioblitz-2020-geelong Join this project to keep up to date in see what others are seeing and recording in our area.
If you are a Surf Coast resident, then the project to join is https://inaturalist.ala.org.au/projects/great-southern-bioblitz-2020-surf-coast

To monitor overall progress of how Geelong and the Surf Coast are going compared with other GSB participating groups - check out the project https://inaturalist.ala.org.au/projects/great-southern-bioblitz-umbrella As of today, there are 110 participants with a strong representation from Argentina and Brazil.

Within the GSB, there is an International project event that just keeps track of Moth observations. This is a members only based, so if you want to compete and have your moth observations included - join the project https://inaturalist.ala.org.au/projects/moth-night-a-great-southern-bioblitz-project

Note to join any projects, you must be logged into iNaturalist prior to clicking on the links to be able to see the Join Icon on the project page.
Future updates on the event will be communicated via the GSB projects listed above.

Best wish
Rod Lowther

Posted on 14 de setembro de 2020, 02:05 AM by rover-rod rover-rod | 0 comentários | Deixar um comentário

27 de julho de 2020

City Nature Challenge 2021 - Dates Announced

I received an email from the organisers of the CNC challenge. Date for bioblitz in 2021 will at the end of April. The later date for next year is at the request of cities in northern USA, Canada and Europe that experience cold winters to have a better chance that spring conditions and climate has arrived.

The 2021 City Nature Challenge dates:
Making observations: April 30 - May 3
Getting everything uploaded / working on identifications: May 4 - 9
Results announced: May 10

I am looking for a volunteer to attend the 3 telecoms( zoom) one hour meetings with the International coordinators meeting over a 6 month period leading up to the CNC. Please contact Rod Lowther rod.lowther@live.com to discuss background if interested.

Regards Rod

Posted on 27 de julho de 2020, 07:11 AM by rover-rod rover-rod | 1 comentário | Deixar um comentário

21 de julho de 2020

Join the Great Southern BioBlitz 2020

The Great Southern BioBlitz is based on the same format as the worldwide City Nature Challenge (CNC) held earlier in the year and covered by this project. In the CNC, four Australian cities, Adelaide, Geelong, Redlands and Sydney were involved in the four days BioBlitz with Australians recorded almost 25,000 animal, fungi, and plant observations.
Following the success of the CNC, the Australian cities involved have combined to organise the Great Southern BioBlitz to highlight the biodiversity of our country in the flourishing springtime when flowering plants and many creatures are more evident in rural and city environments.

The GSB organising committee is eager to have as more many cities, towns and rural shires involved in this event where people participating at each location are striving to find and photograph as many species as possible within the event time frame.

The event will be held from Friday 25 September till the end of Monday 28 September with survey areas based around local government boundaries.

For our area covered by City Nature Challenge, four local projects have been created.
Geelong: (COGG plus part of Golden Plain and Moorabool shires)
https://inaturalist.ala.org.au/projects/great-southern-bioblitz-2020-geelong
Surf Coast:
https://inaturalist.ala.org.au/projects/great-southern-bioblitz-2020-surf-coast
Ballarat Region: (City of Ballarat and adjacent Northern Golden Plains, West Moorabool, Hepburn, and Pyrenees shire areas)

https://inaturalist.ala.org.au/projects/great-southern-bioblitz-2020-ballarat-region
Colac Otways:
https://inaturalist.ala.org.au/projects/great-southern-bioblitz-2020-colac-and-otway

We are currently in discussion with the Field Naturalist Club of Victoria on the allocation of council areas so as to have a few Melbourne City areas that also include adjacent peri -urban and some rural areas.

The overarching Project for the Great Southern BioBlitz showing all competitor totals including those locations in New Zealand, South Ameria and Africa is
https://inaturalist.ala.org.au/projects/great-southern-bioblitz-umbrella

A Victorian project providing a snap shot of Melbourne and Regional Victoria is: https://inaturalist.ala.org.au/projects/great-southern-bioblitz-2020-victoria

We look forward to you joining your local area project and let’s make this springtime BioBlitz a successful and fun filled event as was the CNC.

https://greatsouthernbiobl.wixsite.com/website
And follow us on Facebook and twitter @GSBioblitz

Posted on 21 de julho de 2020, 03:27 AM by rover-rod rover-rod | 0 comentários | Deixar um comentário

15 de julho de 2020

2020 City Nature Challenge Geelong

My apologies for not including this information in the offical project earlier. I did send out the note below via email and include in the June edition of Geelong Naturalist so may have missed some people.

So for completeness;

T he City Nature Challenge (CNC) concluded at midnight on Sunday 3 May. Geelong’s position in relation to the 244 participating cities is reported here with a summary showing ranking and totals for a variety of categories. This year the CNC rules were amended and the activity was no longer considered a competition due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. The organisers proceeded with the CNC on the basis that it would provide people with an opportunity to connect with nature. One of the prime objectives of the CNC is to foster observation and recording of nature using the iNaturalist system, and this remained the case in 2020.
Despite the difficulties, and much hardship experienced in some cities, the CNC organisers reported that thousands more people participated this year compared with 2019. The total species count was up, even though total observations were 150 000 fewer than last year.
For us in Geelong, the process was very new. I thought you might wish to see how we ranked against other cities as if it were still a competition. Table 1 shows various CNC categories and our corresponding ranking on the leader board.

CNC Categories - Geelong City Ranking

Total Observations (5949) - 40
Total Verifiable Observations (5496) - 37
Total Research Observations (3740) - 26
Total Species (1384) - 30
Total Verifiable Species (1292) - 28
Total Research Species (962) - 16
Total Observers (135)- 73
Total Identifiers (266) - 58

It is clear from these relative rankings that our standing in the CNC has been exemplary! Our performance is in the top 10 percentile of participating cities for Research Grade observations for any organisation—let alone a volunteer-based nature appreciation club. This is a rewarding outcome for all participants. It reinforces our already good reputation achieved over many years through involvement in other surveys and citizen science programs. The collected biodiversity and species information will be of benefit within the community and for use by relevant local and state government authorities.
Examining the CNC tables across the 67 cities with a population between 100 000 and one million shows that Geelong ranked fourth in total observations following Chiayi (Taiwan), Gainesville (Florida) and Christchurch (New Zealand). Christchurch had been identified as a benchmark city for us in planning for the event. It is pleasing to see that we achieved—in our first year—a comparable outcome to this New Zealand city which had participated in 2019.
Geelong ranked sixth for total observations for cities within our climate region (Warm Temperate Oceanic), comprising a subset of 37 cities, and third for total species in this category. In the total species count we were just behind Christchurch and Asheville (North Carolina). However, when looking at Geelong numbers for total verifiable and research grade species we achieved the No 1 ranking. The city nature challenge climate grouping is based on the Koppen Climate Classification.
Looking to individual contributions: The six top observers for Geelong were Helen Schofield, Rod Lowther, Trevor Prowd, Lachie Forbes, Naomi Wells and Jeff Dagg.
The six top local identifiers were Lorraine Phelan, Helen Schofield, Beth Ross, Graham Possingham, Marilyn Hewish and Naomi Wells.
Overall, it was a great effort from all our observers and identifiers. While the CNC was not a formal competition, I would nevertheless like to acknowledge the immense contribution Helen Schofield and Lorraine Phelan made to Geelong’s success, and feel it right and justifiable that they jointly share the title ‘Geelong CNC 2020 Champion Naturalist’.
Acknowledgements: 18 webinars were held prior to, and during, the CNC with more than 80 people attending at least one session giving a total of 242 attendees across all sessions. The webinars covered iNaturalist familiarisation, plus nature information presentations. These presentations were recorded and made available for viewing via our Facebook page. There were 94 viewings online as of Monday 18 May. Thanks to those involved in these information sessions.
Thanks to presenters Thomas Mesaglio for ‘Beachcombing for all occasions’; Guy Dutson for ‘Frogs and reptiles of the Geelong region’; Peter Crowcroft for his presentation and demonstration on ‘Mothing at home’; and Bernie and Barry Lingham for their excellent ‘Hints on photographing and identifying plants’ talk. These webinars were all very well attended and generated much interest and discussion in preparation for the CNC.
Thanks to Jenny Possingham in preparing and making available her informative guide on ‘Mobile phone photography’. The presentation was available for public viewing on the CNC Facebook page and received over 100 views.

Posted on 15 de julho de 2020, 02:55 AM by rover-rod rover-rod | 1 comentário | Deixar um comentário

26 de abril de 2020

Monday last day of the CNC observation period

Tomorrow is the last day for observations to be made in the City Nature Challenge. For observations to be valid, photos will need to be date stamped with a time within CNC period. That is up to Monday midnight. Important that your camera time is accurate with AEST Time zone setting and not Summer time.

Valid observation may up uploaded for a further 6 days, however we ought to strive to have them in the iNaturalist system by end Wednesday latest. This will provide adequate time for the identifiers to finalise species Identification and resolve any technical issues.

Thank you all for your contribution and efforts in documenting our local biodiversity.

Currently we are second place in the Australian rankings behind Adelaide.

Good hunting for tomorrow.

Regards Rod

Posted on 26 de abril de 2020, 12:11 PM by rover-rod rover-rod | 0 comentários | Deixar um comentário

25 de abril de 2020

Milestone during the CNC

In the prelude to the City Nature Challenge, the Geelong Region project ran from 1st March to 22nd April and recorded 3248 observation, found 1150 species with 206 observers. At the start of day three of the CNC, we are now approaching the same level of iNat activity and maybe we will even surpass the lead up numbers (observations and species) during the today if the weather improves. Currently Geelong has 2810 observations, 912 species with 91 observers. Great effort!

Number of observers much lower as many of the Melbourne based naturalists who visited the area at the start of March are no longer able to do so due to the travel restrictions.

Cheers Rod

Posted on 25 de abril de 2020, 10:03 PM by rover-rod rover-rod | 0 comentários | Deixar um comentário

24 de abril de 2020

A good day on the CNC

Well done to everyone for a good day's effort. Great to see we lead in observation for a while and still do with total species. The list of species is looking very encoruaging. Of course with the time differences , we should see in the morning how the Western hemisphere cities who have been in the challenge before start have fared.

Lets see if our moth night can get a few more new species before retiring the night.
Tomorrow is another day to add the commons and starting thinking about some species we ought to have found in our backyards and local parks and reserves.

Cheers RodL

Posted on 24 de abril de 2020, 07:55 AM by rover-rod rover-rod | 0 comentários | Deixar um comentário

28 de março de 2020

Geelong Region -CNC Prelude update

A halfway update on the prelude competition. we have just clicked over 100 iNaturalist users contributing at least one observation. We would hope to sign up a further 200 people by Earth day and hopefully all will be involved in the City Nature Challenge occurring over the ANZAC long weekend.

The Surf Coast remains the leading area in terms of observation and Bellarine has the most observers. Details at https://inaturalist.ala.org.au/projects/cnc-geelong-regions

That could all change as people start recording more species in their backyard.
When out, please ensure social distancing and continue to maintain good hygiene practices.
https://citynaturechallenge.org/covid19/
https://www.inaturalist.org/blog/31664-exploring-nature-when-you-re-stuck-at-home

Regards Rod

Posted on 28 de março de 2020, 11:06 PM by rover-rod rover-rod | 0 comentários | Deixar um comentário

19 de março de 2020

CNC Update

Hi All,
We are 19 days into our prelude to the City Nature Challenge whereby we are looking at the accumulation of observation across the Geelong Region.
There have been 70 observers submit observations with a total 281 species recorded.
The Surf Coast has bolted away with in terms of observations and total species count in part due to some GFNC members attending the Frogwood Arboretum/ Bambra wetlands excursion last weekend.

The area summaries are shown at https://inaturalist.ala.org.au/projects/cnc-geelong-regions
Leaders for the various areas as follows:
Surf Coast- John Neman
Bellarine – Jane Morrow
Geelong City – Rod Lowther
Upper Barwon and Otways- John Neman
Northern Greater Geelong- mdbirds

The prelude will continue until the 22nd April so keep those observation coming in!

As with the City Nature Challenge, casual observations are allowed and count towards observation number but will not be considered in the species listing. The process is on the web submission page instead of selecting “Choose files” command, click on the “More Import Options” and follow the instructions. This will enable ebird lists to be included and if anyone wishes some help with the process of uploading - please contact me for additional instructions.

I have had a few questions around the boundaries of our Gelong region for the CNC and in response to requests I have amended it slightly to now include Mud Island and all of Colac ( previously we only had the outer areas to the east).

Details on our survey region can be viewed at https://inaturalist.ala.org.au/places/geelong-bioblitz-region
I am happy to report the City Nature Challenge will still be on in April but we recently were advised by the International Organisers that it will no longer should be considered as a competition as many area are impacted due the Coronavirus and their group activities are be scaled down or prohibited.
The CNC event promotes biodiversity and seeks to have people to connect with nature- this can still be achieved under the current circumstances and CNC – Geelong will focus its efforts in having people record observations from their backyard, park and reserves as individuals or very small groups while still ensuring good social distancing principles and other hygiene practices are in place.

For further information around the City Nature Challenge – Geelong, you may contact me via the iNaturalist messaging system or directly by email
Best wishes, Rodl

Rod.lowther@live.com

Posted on 19 de março de 2020, 03:36 AM by rover-rod rover-rod | 0 comentários | Deixar um comentário

Arquivos