StayiNatHome: take a break, grab the iNat app & explore your home + garden

This is a crazy time. New Zealanders are all locked up in our self-isolation bubbles to slow the spread of the Covid19 virus and save lives. At iNaturalist NZ–Mātaki Taiao, we'd like to do our bit to help you get through. And we can, when you stay at home with iNat.

Taking a break with nature is good for you

It's medically proven that spending time with nature is good for our health. It's a great way to dial down the stress, even for a short while. So grab the free iNat app, or your camera, and take a break to explore the nature in your garden and home. By using the iNat app, we can connect you to our large community of nature enthusiasts to get pretty much any species identified. Let's link our bubbles online and stay connected.

What's in your garden and home?

How many wild species can you find? How many are native? What species that your neighbours have found in their gardens are missing from yours? If you're a regular iNat NZ user, what species can you find that you've not noticed before? Take the time to discover just how diverse your home and garden really are.

Comment on observations in your neighbourhood

With the iNaturalist NZ–Mātaki Taiao website, you don't need to feel alone. Browse through the other observations being made in your neighbourhood on our Explore page. Share your enthusiasm by posting comments and questions on observations. Favourite observations. Start conversations. Encourage new users that are opening their eyes to wild Aotearoa nature.


Help others identify their finds

If you know some things about nature, you can also share your identification expertise on our Identify page. There are new people joning all the time. Whether you know your house sparrows, or Hoheria, or Hormosira, it's great to get your help identifying the observations as they come in. Share, and build, your knowledge of nature by making identifications and starting or joining in conversations on observations.

Follow the nature news

With our #StayiNatHome project, we're pulling together all of the activity on iNaturalist NZ–Mātaki Taiao during New Zealand's Covid19 lockdown. Any NZ observations you make during this time will automatically pop up in the project. If you visit the project page you'll get to see all of our project journal posts. Join the project and you'll get alerted when new journal articles are posted. We'll also be posting on our favourite observations, highlighting important discoveries, and providing tips for getting the most from iNaturalist NZ–Mātaki Taiao.

Share your favourite observations with the world

We'll also be sharing our favourite observations and stories on social media (Twitter and Facebook) under the hashtag #StayiNatHome. We encourage you to do the same. You can share your favourite iNat NZ observations by copying their web links and sharing them on social media (#StayiNatHome #iNaturalistNZ).

Need help?

If you need help, you can message us on the iNaturalist NZ–Mātaki Taiao website, reach us on Twitter and Facebook at iNaturalistNZ, or email us at help@inaturalist.nz. Or, just leave us a comment below.

Stay safe, stay home, & keep exploring.

Posted on March 29, 2020 09:54 PM by jon_sullivan jon_sullivan

Comments

Fantastic idea Team StayiNatHome! Will share to my conservation and social media network :-)

Posted by jacqui-nz almost 4 years ago

Thanks @jacqui-nz!

Posted by jon_sullivan almost 4 years ago

@jacqui-nz We've also set up a group on Slack to plan StayiNatHome and the upcoming City Nature Challenge. Would you like to be invited onto that? We'd welcome your input and ideas.

Posted by jon_sullivan almost 4 years ago

Thanks Jon, but my bubble has no broadband. I'm on limited hotspot data, so trying to conserve. But if I can get a better connection, I'll be in touch.

Posted by jacqui-nz almost 4 years ago

No worries at all. Let me know if your bubble gets a better connection.

Posted by jon_sullivan almost 4 years ago

I'm a bit slow catching up with this but had been posting pics taken 24 March onwards from (a) my home section; (b) the immediate walking-out neighbourhood. Only one has appeared under my name in the summary. Do records have to reach 'Research Grade' to appear? If so, this seems to be biased towards the commonplace species becazuse they are the ones that other reviewers agree with.

Posted by cco almost 4 years ago

@cco The StayiNatHome project currently has you with 12 observations. We kicked off the project on 25 March, the first day of the Level 4 lockdown, so your 24 March observations won't be there. Do let us know if there are some later observations missing though. The project should be catching them all.

Posted by jon_sullivan almost 4 years ago

Thanks Jon. The data don't tally - I have 15 posted from 25 March onwards - and while the 12 which are there are species I posted from 25 March, a number are not my pictures, incl. grey teal, NZ scaup, Fraxinus griffithii, Elaeagnus. Missing ones include snail vine, Oxalis polyphylla and Achnatherum miliaceum

Posted by cco almost 4 years ago

Curious. Thanks @cco. I'll look into that now.

Posted by jon_sullivan almost 4 years ago

@cco I think I've figured it out.

You have 12 observations in New Zealand, and those are the ones included in #StayiNatHome. Some you have uploaded with private coordinates, which means that #StayiNatHome doesn't know they're in New Zealand and so doesn't scoop them up. If you set these to Obscured rather than Private, we'll know that they were in NZ and so #StayiNatHome will grab them.

Also, it looks like you've got your profile defaulting to HST (Hawaii Standard Time), oddly, which means that some of your 25 March observations are being dropped because they weren't 25 March in NZ time. If you pop into your profile on the website, you can switch your default time zone to NZ, then batch edit your current observations to update them.

Also, one observation (this one) has no observation date set for it, although you uploaded it on 26 March.

I'll message you now in case you need some help fixing those things.

Posted by jon_sullivan almost 4 years ago

Hi Jon
Well, I 'fixed' the Hawaiian time issue as you suggested but notice that my postings since are now 12 hours out and I can't see how to correct that issue. Secondly, how do I change the 'private' rating* for any given photo to 'obscured' or public? That option, which is there when I post a photo does not appear, when I bring up a posting again. But even a number of my new postings (I've been photographing and uploading every plant in my garden that currently has flowers or fruits) still appear in this month-long challenge under someone else's photos. Yes, the grey teal and NZ scaup pics you singled out before do come up as mine now.
*I mistakenly thought the private/public rating for a photo meant whether the place the photo was taken was on private or public property!

Posted by cco almost 4 years ago

@jon_sullivan Are you going to extend the date of this project to 27 April (official end of Level 4).

Posted by jacqui-nz almost 4 years ago

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