Flatbush Gardener's Garden's Journal

Published to my blog because iNat doesn't allow photos or images in posts.

Insect Year in Review 2021

This Project hit that milestone today. Even without any new Observations, that number is always subject to fluctuation do to changing community identifications.

This has been a gradual build-up since December of last year, when we hit 600 "Species":

1. I'm trying to regain the top spot in the Home Projects Umbrella Project for number of observations. The gaps was in the thousands earlier this year. I've now closed the gap to less than 800. I expect to regain the lead by the end of September.
2. I've been actively going out almost every day to add more Observations. Just because I'm observing more intently, I'm finding things I've never seen before.
3. I invested in a new camera and macro ring light rig. I've adapted my old macro lens to this, and i'm getting great shots. This combination is giving me the anatomical details needed to get to lower-level taxon identification, including species level.

On December 13th, 2020, this Project reached 600 "Species" - different Taxa, at any level - identified. I neglected to get a screenshot of that Project milestone, but I commemorated it with a tweet:

I just reached 600 Taxa ("Species") for the @iNaturalist Project I setup for my home and garden, Flatbush Gardener's Garden.

What pushed me over the top?

1. @ceiseman started identifying a number of my leaf miners down to Genus, and even species. This was possible because I've been identifying the Host Plants. I know the plants well because they're growing in my own garden! I either planted them, or - more often for the leaf miners - they are weeds I've come to know (and sometimes love).
2. In one case, his ID led me to correct the identification of a woody plant I've been struggling to identify growing on the side of our house since we bought it 15 years ago. That became another Genus-level "species".
3. With 600 in reach, I looked back at my old photos. I realized I had a lot of bird photos I had never entered into iNaturalist. I added a handful that were new species, and voila! 600 species.

I just finally caught up all my past Observations that were not showing up as located in the Place "Flatbush Gardener's Garden", and therefore were missing from this Project.

It's taken me much of the year so far to figure out how to do this. I thought I'd write it up for others to follow.

First, some context. iNaturalist automatically assigns an Observation to a Place if the location is within the Place boundaries AND - and this was the part that as hard to figure out - the Accuracy is not "too large". So, even though the Location - the pin on the map - of an Observation places it squarely within the boundaries of a Place, if the Accuracy - the circle around the pinpoint - is located largely outside of the place, then it's treated as if it falls outside the Place boundaries.

When you're outside in a large park, this would hardly ever matter. But urban places tend to be small, and tightly bounded. The smaller the Place, the more it matters how small the Accuracy circle is for an Observation.

Another challenge to Location for Observations in urban areas is that position in cell phones and the like often rely as much on wifi networks as they do on GPS satellites. This allows positioning to continue to work well in urban areas, but when my phone is picking up my neighbor's wifi, it's more likely to place an Observation in my neighbor's yard than my own.

I learned this year to verify the Location of a new Observation as I'm uploading it, when it's fresh in my mind and easiest to correct. That prevents me from losing new Observations. But it didn't help me with past ones.

I knew I could look at Observations on the map. But what I needed was a way to look at the map, and see only the Observations that were NOT counting as "Flatbush Gardener's Garden" when the pinpoint appeared to be located there.

I found the clue in some of the old-style conventional Projects I've joined, the ones that don't automatically collect matching Observations; you have to explicitly add your Observations. They provide a way to add your Observations to the Project. For example, here is the link to the home page for conventional iNaturalist Project for the Empire State Native Pollinator Survey (ESNPS), which concludes this year:

https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/empire-state-native-pollinator-survey

Scroll down a little and on the right you'll see link for "Add From Your Observations". Click that and it lists all your eligible Observations that are not yet part of the Project. For me, the URL is:

https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/xris?has%5B%5D=photos&has%5B%5D=geo&not_in_project=empire-state-native-pollinator-survey&place_id%5B%5D=48&taxon_ids%5B%5D=47201&taxon_ids%5B%5D=47157&taxon_ids%5B%5D=47208&taxon_ids%5B%5D=47822&verifiable=any

So, there's a lot in there, but the key for the problem at hand is this part of the query:

not_in_project=empire-state-native-pollinator-survey

That was the secret ingredient I was missing: How to find my Observations that were NOT already part of "Flatbush Gardener's Garden". Zoom in on the map to where the Observations would appear:

https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?nelat=40.6429229068228&nelng=-73.96693957892008&not_in_project=flatbush-gardener-s-sgarden&place_id=any&swlat=40.642363220040494&swlng=-73.96921349610007&user_id=xris&verifiable=any

Now I can pick out the ones that have pinpoints in the right place, but aren't showing up in the Project. I can edit them to reduce the Accuracy distance. I've learned that I need to get to 11 meters or shorter for them to count. Or I can correct the pinpoint, if I know it's in the wrong place.

This technique should work for any small urban Place where you're having trouble getting your Observations to "count" toward your Project.

Just a month ago, @carrieseltzer created an iNaturalist Umbrella Project for "personal" Projects of people's homes, gardens, or yards:

As we all more closely inspect our immediate surroundings as of April 2020, it seemed like a good time to pull together some projects that capture biodiversity in homes around the world.
- https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/home-projects-umbrella/journal/33048-welcome-to-the-project-for-biodiversity-around-homes

At this moment, it includes 19 Projects from all over the world, including this one, Flatbush Gardener's Garden. The Leaderboard on the home page ranks the Projects by number of Observations, Species, and Observers.

We have more Observers than any of the other Projects! That is all thanks to you, my friends and colleagues, who have visited, come to a garden tour, or participated in the iNaturalist workshop I conducted on-site last year.

This is the time of year I'd be doing more workshops and tours. They will have to wait. I'm working out how I could do some virtually, and have you "visit" again.

In the meantime, keep observing, stay safe, and take care. I look forward to when we can meet again.

Yours in nature,
Xris (Flatbush Gardener)