I came upon the notorious wild oats yesterday. They were growing along a trail following a small stream in the Hiladacy Preserve that does not even show on a map. They are native plants but I am not sure they were planted by the preserve or are growing wild.

I wonder whether native plants planted in a preserve, where they otherwise might be replaced by invasive species, should be considerd wild or cultivated.

Introduction

The Merlin App often lists birds that I do not hear. Also, when recordings from Merlin are played back using WASPS I see events on the spectrograph that I cannot here. Merlin gives the time in the recording that a species is first identified. I wondered if I could correlate the events I see on the spectrograph with the birds Merlin is identifying.

Methods

I started a recording using the Merlin app on my cell phone. I then placed my cell phone on a log and walked away. As I was walking I could hear some birds but could only pick out a few. There was also a dog barking in the neighborhood. I returned about five and a half minutes later, retreived my cell phone, and stopped the recording.

Merlin reported 11 species of birds

Tufted Titmouse @ 00:06
American Crow @ 00:28
Northern Cardinal @ 01:04
Wild Turkey * @ 01:05
White-thoated Sparrow @ 01:35
Red-bellied Woodpecker @ 01:47
Blue Jay @ 02:40
Red-tailed Hawk @ 02:41
Carolina Wren @ 03:08
Carolina Chickadee @ 03:58
Song Sparrow @ 03:50

I know I did not hear all of these birds while walking.

At home, I played back the recording using the Merlin app. I could discern the following by ear.

Tufted Titmouse
American Crow
Blue Jay
Dog barking
Red-tailed Hawk
Red-bellied Woodpecker
Unidentified bird

There were some signals on the recording that I could see on the audio spectrograph but could not hear.
There were also some signals discernable on the recording but burried in the ambient noise generated by my walking away and returning.

I then conected my cell phone to my computer and opened the file using the WASP app. The WASP app permitted me to select portions of the spectrograph for detailed study. I immediately went to the time in the recording where the wild turkey was first identified and found that it was actually the barking dog. I could also associate other signals on the spectrograph with different birds Merlin had identified; both those I could here and those I could not hear.

I think I will start to include spectrograms with my iNaturalist observations.

... When I started my walk today, I heard a crow over head, I looled up and saw the crow chasing another bird; the other bird looked like a hawk. This event was a single crow not a mob of crows.

... I saw a group of small birds hopping about in the bushes along "Pilgrim Run". As I approach they moved more into the bushes so I stopped and waited a bit. Tiger, my dog, also remained quiet. The birds went about their business and returned to the stream to bathe. I thought they might be Carolina Wrens. They were mostly brown with a prominent white bar over the eye. When I got home I looked up images and descriptions of Carolna Wrens; what I found was consistent with my tentative identification.

... I saw a formation of Canada Geese flying over head. They were flying east but circled around.

I began to sense a slowdown in the woods about mid-July, a few weeks after the solstice. The avian chorus of spring was quieting; long songs giving way to short calls and chirps. The leaves on plants were showing signs of grazing and browsing as production gave way to consumption. Rainy days turned into afternoon thundershowers unable to maintain the water table; large vernal pools shrank and the small ones disappeared leaving only damp spots on the ground. All, a seeming prelude to fall in the midst of summer.

Over the years, I have taken hundreds of photos of natural things. No so much landscapes and sunsets but stars, rocks, and living things. I have been looking for a way to curate them so they would be useful to me and perhaps others. I installed iNaturalist on my smart phone a little over a month ago thinking it would help me identify the things I saw and heard. It did not give me on-the-spot results so I let it lie. My interest in using it was peaked, when the leader of a mushroom walk I attended mentioned it and its relevance to her hobby. Based on her, sort of side remarks, I gave it a quick try to see what kind of a response I got; I got none so lost interest again. Yesterday, I decided to look more deepely into iNaturalist. I logged into the iNaturalist website using my PC and spent some time exploring it. I actually read the information and got to understand what it was all about. I read the guides and watched the videos to get an idea of how to use it. This time I was impressed and decided to give it a real try. I realized there would be a learning curve but was determined to persevere. Using the mobile app, I uploaded photos of a few organisms, I felt confident I could identify, filling out the upload form as best I could. Before the day was out, two of the photos were identified by other users and the photos were upgraded to “research grade”; It felt good. Today, I explored some more. Using the website, I uploaded photos I had stored on my PC. I also merged observations, batch edited observations, and entered observations with multiple pictures. I am anxious to see the response. PS: This journal entry is my way see how the journal works.