State of the Syrphs - 1-Aug-2024
Hello everyone,
Welcome to the summer holidays! There's been a big bump in observations at the end of this month, unsurprisingly. We'll see how August goes. Here's what to look out for in August.
Observations
July set another record for the number of observations uploaded.
We recorded a provisional 102 species. Highlights included Callicera aurata, Sphaerophoria interrupta, Eristalis similis, a couple of Platycheirus angustatus, Chrysogaster cemiteriorum and Pelecocera tricincta.
Identifications
We have also delivered a record number of IDs this month.
Despite that, the NeedsID pile has grown considerably. I'm not sure why that should be because we have actually made more IDs per new observation than last month when it grew much less. But hey-ho, the NeedsID pile is still much lower than it was this time last year - the first full month of this project. Here are the usual breakdowns by tribe and the deep dive into Syrphini. For the first time these can show 13 months so from now on we can directly compare where we are this year to the same time last year!
The biggest climbers (with >50obs to start with) were Syrphus (+34%), Melanostoma (+26%), Chrysotoxum (+24%), Xylota (+20%), and Neoascia (+18%). Eristalis increased by 13% which is a lot from a high base - enough to easily reclaim the 'neediest' spot from Platycheirus. The top 5 neediest genera at the moment are Eristalis (1692), Platycheirus (1576), Melanostoma (916), Cheilosia (897), and Eupeodes (545).
Annotations
As far as annotations go we're a bit down on where we have been recently, but still way up on the 10-20% that was normal before the project.
Obscured observations
Just over 3% of observations this month had obscured locations, which is quite good. Click here for why this setting poses difficulties for recording schemes and NBN's recommended alternative.
Thanks everyone, it's great to see more and more people chipping in with IDs and annotations for others. There have been people who have not been able to do as much this month (including myself), but others have more than taken up the slack.
Enjoy the summer!
Matt
All data collected on 31st July 2024
Comments
The growing NeedsID pile despite increasing identifications per new observation could be explained by the impression I'm getting from Updates traffic of an increasing number of identifications being added to observations after they have reached RG.
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