Archivos de diario de julio 2020

03 de julio de 2020

6-month update -- iNat Big Year

Seeing Jeff's post reminded me that I should go ahead and do one myself, so here goes.

One thing that this process has proven to me is that Jeff's a lot more efficient at getting observations posted than I am. I just finished posting the 12th of June's shots, and tomorrow it'll be the 13th. So the numbers given here are through 6/12.

And what are those numbers? For the year, in Lake County, 2536 observations of 1241 species. (Well, leaves, actually, with some taxa not identified to species. With photographs rather than specimens, there are of course many groups where we can't do any better.)

A breakdown:
Plants________887_440

Insects_________ 677____ 359

Birds ________409_188

Fungi ________347 138

Arachnids _____63__34

Mollusks ______25__ 15

Mammals ________ 35_____15

Fishes_________15__10

Reptiles _______18___7

Amphibians ____12__ 6

Protozoa _______5 ___4

Chromists ________ 2______1

Myriapods _____9 __ 4

Springtails _____13 __7

Crustaceans ___12 __ 9

Annelids _______5 __ 2

Flatworms ______2 __2

I had figured on a goal of 2000 (I guess Jeff's more ambitious), and given that over half of the species on the list were only added since May, it seems more than likely I'll get there. (I'm guessing about 300 more are waiting for processing, in fact.) Maybe I'll have to see if Jeff's 2500 is feasible.

There have been some nice surprises along the way. The biggest one, perhaps, was one I'm a bit ambivalent about -- the River Otter lying dead along Hwy 45. Not the way I wanted to find my first Illinois otter, in any case. But there have been other, more pleasant ones. Perhaps the most aesthetically pleasing was the male Rainbow Bluet at Raven Glen FP, in the same little bit of shoreline I've seen them at before. There were two or three years where it seemed they could be counted on there, but it's been several years since I'd seen one.

Another interesting damsel was the Springwater Dancer hanging out above the ravine at McDonald Woods FP, in a spot that I would have thought was wildly inappropriate habitat for that species. 20 years ago, this species was unknown in this part of the state, but since the initial discovery at Bluff Springs Fen in Cook County, they've slowly spread, and Jeff found one at another odd spot in Cook County, the day after I posted mine. Oh, on this one I owe a big thank you to @greglasley for the ID -- I wouldn't even have thought to look in that direction.

Which brings me to a final point -- according to my observation page, 415 people have provided identifications, in more than a few cases correcting my initial attempts at groups I'm not very well-versed on. Thank you all -- this sort of project would be basically impossible without the sort of community that we're building here.

Publicado el julio 3, 2020 12:57 MAÑANA por psweet psweet | 2 comentarios | Deja un comentario

Archivos