How does one organize a Lockdown challenge: Activities for the weekend
Without Bioblitzes, Beach walks, Tidal Pool activities, Greenbelt Picnics, hikes, walks, tours, reptile hunts and other fun activities, how should we structure our weekend for the City Nature Challenge?
We all have our own routines now during lockdown, but personally here is my agenda for the City Nature Challenge
Friday:
Focus:
- Birds
- pollinators - prowling around the flowering plants
do easies (chameleon, lizard, bees)
Tasks:- midnight start: geckos, moths and snails and slugs (see what has been eating the vegetable seedlings)
- check bird bath and bird feeders
- (build a bird feeder or bath if you dont have one)
- prepare rotten fruit table for flies & beetles
- prepare checklists
Saturday:
Focus:
- Goggo hunt (and any Easter eggs missed)
Moths
Tasks:- Get sheet and light ready
Sunday:
Focus:
- Garden picnic
- Lichens
- dawn & dusk: overflying birds
Night hunt: eyeshine and spiders
Tasks:evaluate checklist progress and plan
*make sure Bingo is achieved.- Do Polyphagous Borer Beetle survey for atlas
Check all Ants done for Ant atlas
RAIN FORESCAST Evening: not much - Rainfrog Atlas!!!
Monday:
Focus:
- Mopup
- Going small - compost heap and woodpiles. Lift pots, stones, logs, etc.
- signs: mole runs, molerat heaps, poops, feathers anything ...
Comments
Links:
City Checklist https://www.inaturalist.org/posts/33445-city-checklist
City Bingo sheet: https://www.inaturalist.org/posts/33688-bioblitz-bingo
Questions & Answers:
https://www.inaturalist.org/posts/29259-cape-town-city-nature-challenge-2020-faq
Atlasses:
Chameleon - for data entry: https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/chameleons-of-cape-town-atlas : for summary https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/dwarf-chameleons-of-cape-town
Ant - https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/ant-atlas-of-cape-town
Rainfrog - https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/rainfrogs-of-cape-town
Polyphagous Shothole Borer - https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/polyphagous-shothole-borer-beetle-pshb-atlas-s-afr
HOW TO COMPILE YOUR OWN PERSONAL CHECKLIST
On iNaturalist, on your main menu
click "Explore"
click the "Map" tab to show the map.
click on the find your current location button (they eye) on the left
((If that does not work - zoom in to your house using the + and - buttons and dragging the map with your mouse))
(if you like the four arrows symbol will enlarge the map to fill your entire screen).
adjust your screen to show the area you want. if there is lots of data (pegs: colour coded - green = plants, red = animals, etc) you can zoom in
when you are happy click on the orange "Redo search in map" button
look at the summary bar - you will need a few hundred observations, if not zoom out and repeat the "Redo search in map button"
click on the "Species" tab
These are the species that have been seen around you in descending order.
if you want you can highlight the list and copy it into your text editor and adjust it.
if you want a more likely list, then click on the grey "Filters" box
under "Date observed" look for "Months" and tick March, April and May.
apply filter by clicking "Update Search"
These are now the species seen in your area for Autumn.
You now have your personal local Lockdown garden checklist ready. Get set ... GO!
For those nerds who are really sophisticated, add the following script into the url bar. This limits the filter to only those observations that have been seen in gardens.
&field:Habitat%20(s%20Afr)=Gardens
for instance I get:
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?month=3,450&nelat=-34.051&nelng=18.462&place_id=any&swlat=-34.0544&swlng=18.452&view=species&field:Habitat%20(s%20Afr)=Gardens
((if you want to include planted stuff, untick the "Verifiable" button in the filter))
Good luck Cape Town!
Mid-morning is good for butterflies and other flying goggas, they will have started moving around but are still cold and relatively sluggish so you have time to get in-focus photos.
Lift up every stone and log in your garden, look under pots, the welcome mat, leaf piles, check inside the postbox, shake all your trees and shrubs to see if anything falls out. As it's getting colder lots of goggas are hiding!
Hamish Robertson had some great success with ant luring by putting out tuna bait traps, did you see? https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?place_id=113055&subview=grid&taxon_id=47336&user_id=hamishrobertson
Lots of caterpillars feed at night, don't forget to check the lawn on your prowls! Look out for grass-eating Agrotis sp that are wandering about to pupate right now, I often find them on the stoep at night.
Also a lot of hawk moth cats currently getting fat on grape, fuschia, arum lily. Check Keurboom for Achaea indeterminata caterpillars, we have them in large numbers in Kleinmond right now. The jan-frederik keeps emerging from our veggie bed with fat caterpillars, many from underground. Don't forget to dig!!
-Remember all the weeds on your sidewalk, if you're lucky enough to have a grassy one.
...
Can you tell I'm jealous?
@magrietb You can still do YOUR garden - even if you are outside of Cape Town!!
I totally forgot about our visitors; of course you cannot help with Cape Town: we miss you! But come on- put Kleinmond, Bettys Bay and Pringle Bay on the map!!!
I'm working on it!! Will wait with uploads until the CNC is over, planning to spend my free time these next few days helping with challenge ID's as best I can. Not my forte, but still good fun.
Go or it: many thanks!!
I see we are now in position #4 at 12h20!!
position 1 all round i(#2 for species) at 14h00!!
So we are oscillating in the top 5 for observations, and the top 5 for species, but are way behind for observers.
BUT: DAY 3 - How does one maintain any momentum when one has blitzes our garden to death and are well past posting your 10th observation of a White-eye and and have given up on the Hummingbird Hawkmoth because every time you try to go near it just absconds to your neighbour, and bsides you have done everything twice and there is nothing more worthwhile to do? But is that true?
Time to stock take, but first: now that the sun is up, a quick look around the garden for any strays. But have to wait for Pat to finish her bird count/survey. Heavy due last night and birds especially active (but sigh: all the regulars!)
We're getting tons of garden plants with no discernable features that are (at least for me) very difficult to ID... are there any horticulturalists / nursery specialists we can call in for help?
Leave them for after the event! No one in Cape Town is much bothered with IDs at present: everyone should be out observing!!
(You too!!!) Some rain tonite: should bring out different species (I hope).
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