Today is the day! We are proud to release the 2021 EwA Pheno Digest (Title: Tracking Climate Change through the Seasons) > https://cutt.ly/EwA-2021-Pheno-Digest. Enjoy the recap of our 2021 activities, our impact, and what we have planned this year.

We used a format for this digest that allows us to showcase an immersive story of a year in the life of a red maple that we monitor throughout the year. It would have been sad to miss the opportunity to share the fantastic visuals that we are able to capture in the field. Of course, we also highlight important data, as well as explain some of the why, what, and how of our climate-focused program, we highlight both our studies, and the external or partner usage of our data. We thank the EwA's citizen scientist community for being so committed to this program!

And with this last digest, EwA’s 2021 conservation series is now complete! The series comprises:

• the 2021 Conservation Highlights,
• Biodiversity in a Year (i.e., the 2021 Biodiversity Digest),
• The Little Things that Run The World (i.e., the 2021 Entomo Digest), *
• Tracking Climate Change Through the Seasons (i.e, the 2021 Pheno Digest).
• Keeping the Middlesex Fells Whole (i.e, 2021 Habitat Fragmentation Report),
• the 2021 Vernal Pool Report.
• We also released the EwA live 2021 Data Companion.

See all of EwA's reports and digests throughout the years > https://www.earthwiseaware.org/conservation-reports/.

Enjoy this year's EwA Conservation series ツ Join our effort!

Webinar: City Nature Challenge 2021 How-to & What to Expect to See
When: Tuesday, April 27⋅8:00 p.m. ET | Who: EwA Initiative | Register for free here

We’re getting ready for the 2021 City Nature Challenge! Learn how to observe and record urban biodiversity and make it count!

Between April 30th and May 3rd, hundreds of cities worldwide will be celebrating Nature and gather observations of species found in our area with the help of all who want to participate in the worldwide 2021 City Nature Challenge (CNC). Such events are known as Bioblitz events.

Here we show how to 'iNat' (using the iNaturalist app in the field) and what you can observe in the Greater Boston area at this time of the year. You'll also learn how to protect species and habitats while you're documenting them.

Join us! It's fun and insightful. It's a great opportunity to connect with nature, deepen wildlife ethics, and help science while getting to learn about our communities and their biodiversity!

🎟️ https://www.eventbrite.com/e/cnc-2021-how-to-what-to-expect-to-see-tickets-147181037445

A tip for our project members. As we are using the records of the 'EwA at the Fells' project for our own studies, we pay attention to the identification process to raise the quality and relevance of our data set to science. We also help our observers to strengthen the quality of their observations as much as we can :-) 

One practice that leads to a decrease in the quality of the data is making a species ID suggestion when we don't know (for the sake of having a species identification or to push for verification) and to leave it at that. Then a community member comes into the picture, makes another identification. And then the original observer agrees to the identification to conform with the 2nd identification without really having the expertise or without having done research work to be confident that indeed it is what the other identifier said it was.

The result is that it pushed this observation to what iNat calls a 'research grade' which isn't true since one of the identifiers is not an expert (and only conformed to the other identification. This decreases the value of the observation and increases the cleanup workload to get to a quality dataset that can be used. It's a known issue, and if you ask many of us iNat should strengthen their RG criteria (but it's a whole different discussion).

Instead, what we should do when we're not sure is 'to agree' but to withdraw our own identification–not the observation! just the identification :-). Doing that is very simple: that go to your identification and click on the drop-down on the right, then you'll see at the top of the menu an option to withdraw. And you're done!

Don't hesitate to ask for clarification in this thread. We also run open office hours to help our EwA iNat project community members (check our https://www.earthwiseaware.org/events/ calendar).

Cheers! - Claire

🆕 While past events have been friendly competitions among cities, in response to shifting public health recommendations related to COVID-19, this year’s City Nature Challenge will instead be a celebration of nature in our backyards and neighborhoods. Participants are encouraged to embrace the collaborative aspect of sharing observations online with a digital community, and celebrate the healing power of nature safely, with social distancing, as they document their local biodiversity within new public safety parameters. For detailed information about how the City Nature Challenge is adapting to COVID-19, visit citynaturechallenge.org/COVID19.

Respecting these recommendations we have canceled all our field events. But we are running webinars to help our communities master iNaturalist and hear what to expect to find at this time of the year at their locations.

💻 EwA iNat Deep-Dive Webinar (Fri, Apr 17) »

iNat in Location (How-to): Virtual Lunch Meetups

• 🔎 EwA Urban Wildlife Quest How-to: Fresh Pond (Mon, Apr 20) »

• 🔎 EwA Urban Wildlife Quest How-to: The Fells (Wed, Apr 22) »

• 🔎 EwA Urban Wildlife Quest How-to: Somerville (Thurs, Apr 23) »

ℹ️ Read more » https://www.earthwiseaware.org/2020-city-nature-challenge/

Good news: we're participating again this year! And we're ready to rock that Challenge (with you!)

Our iNat project page is ready: https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/ewa-city-nature-challenge-2020. Please join the project if you want us to get your records in our project specifically. Our projects are close so that we can get the best observation quality for our own scientific studies: no worry we'll train you and have fun together!

All the side events (webinars, field training, etc) to get our community prepared are listed in our 2020 EwA Urban Wildlife Quest page: https://www.earthwiseaware.org/2020-city-nature-challenge/

I just wanted to share with you what I just shared with the DCR today because it's about your contribution to the Fells phenology and biodiversity occurrence + abundance data.

I want that institution to know about your effort and especially of the effort of Dan, Joe, Bill, Laura, Kathy, Mike, Matt and Joe (another Joe)... and Lisa, Jon, Charlie, Sarah and so many more!
So, thanks to our EwA Fells citizen scientists! You just rock :-)

Here's what I sent:

(...)

Speaking of the Fells, You'll all be glad to know that we'll attend a U.S. National Phenology Network event in October (in Mississippi).
EwA has been invited to speak about how we record and use data into ecological narratives (and our story showcases the Fells). Topic: Using your data to tell an ecological story.

FYI, we've recorded more than 10,000 phenophases of fauna and flora in the Fells between June last year ago to date. I'll be glad to share the slides once I have them.

Another cool mention lately and relating to species occurrence: we've been contacted to record one of our observations from the Fells to Odonata Central.
We found a Taper-tailed Darner (Gomphaeschna antilope). Our record is the first visual record in the county!

If you're interested in looking at our iNaturalist Fells records > here they are. (https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/ewa-at-the-fells). It's worth mentioning that we have recorded about 65% of all the Fells records currently logged in that international platform.
The five top iNaturalist observers in the region of the Fells (over 645 people) are EwA Citizen scientists :-)
More importantly, we have logged 1252 Fells species (across all taxa) in the past year and a half - that is, 84% of all Fells species recorded so far on that platform.
So, our citizen scientists are busy raising the biodiversity profile of the Fells :-)

All our studies and results across the region (we are also working with local scientists, and partner with Fresh Pond, Habitat and Green and Open Space Somerville) will be published in an annual report, also including the Fells species records and physical features logging of the vernal pools we surveyed this year (and that I am not even mentioning in this email). You'll get a copy of course, but it was worth giving you some data points to get you excited about our effort to raise awareness, and about the needed system-approach science endeavors in our beautiful woodland. Use the data as you see fit. We're all about global data (i.e. publicly accessible internationally and following standardized and harmonized protocols) and open science, and therefore always happy to share data and ecological knowledge with peers and in our communities.

All the best, - Claire

ⓘ About EwA Citizen Science Program » https://tinyurl.com/ewa-citizen-science
ⓘ More about us (Earthwise Aware) » https://www.earthwiseaware.org

• Claire
  Earthwise Aware Founder & President
  Board member of the Friends of the Fells

Some of our followers have a license setting for their records that prevents their Research-Grade observation to be shared and used by external science platforms -which BTW iNaturalist isn't (a science platform).

So, to start: A little clarification. Unless vetted records migrate to GBIF, our iNat pics are not really used for Science. iNat is primarily a social network for nature enthusiasts. Citizen science is only relating to how the users use iNat (licensing, protocol, etc.). Having a pic on iNat does not equate to 'proper' citizen science unless they can be used by the scientists. And a misunderstanding is that Research Grade are science records. No, they're not: that label only means in iNat that they can be used by scientists and those science platforms they share the records with, but provided that they have a license that allows scientists to really use those records - pushing them to GBiF, the Encyclopedia of Life, etc. In other words, unless the records are going to GBIF (and alike international Science DBs), iNat is nothing really more than a glorified nature photo album. A new Flikr of sort :-)

It's fine, but because EwA can't use then the reported numbers (for our annual report) from our iNat Biodiversity projects when super users records skew too much the stat of interest, then we are reorganizing the projects. It's a given that It's annoying that we discovered the issue late in the game (we are so lucky that Dan -one of our EwA collaborators- found that our supposed contribution actually did not contribute as they were not migrating. But we found a way to fix our stat/report problem... :-)

To solve that, we are changing the structure of our citizen science projects on iNat so that they favor GBIF (and science).

• The EwA Nature Circles project has been renamed to EwA Nature Photo Album and is now disconnected from the umbrella Citizen Science project: 'The EwA Biodiversity Projects'.
  The EwA Nature Photo Album (https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/ewa-nature-photo-album) is now geared towards Nature enthusiasts who are using iNat primarily as a photo album with no citizen science aspiration.

• A new EwA Citizen Science Project, named 'EwA Global Biodiversity' (https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/ewa-global-biodiversity) is replacing the old EwA Nature Circles, to keep our users who had the licensing allowing the records to be pushed to GBIF
• The umbrella project: EwA Biodiversity Projects (https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/ewa-biodiversity-projects) then will show cleaner stats, so that we can point and record that ratio to our communities, partners and the governmental organizations we have to communicate our findings to.

It's a good solution. This allows EwA observers and close super users to participate at the level that they want, prefer or feel most comfortable with: as Nature enthusiasts (photo album), or as citizen scientists (contributing explicitly to Science databases).

Here we are! Enjoy our projects at whatever level you want, and knowing what's behind the scene!

If you are not sure of the licensing that you have, and if you want to make sure that your records are where you want them to be, message us!

Cheers, - Claire

Little update... One of the projects in our collection was a collaborative project. This project is open, and so it's much harder to control quality. As I suspected it would happen, some of the observers are not following the rules (and in this case about copyright ©️). So, as long as the project remains open to all, I am removing it from our umbrella project to keep 'data quality' as clean as possible. Then, we're back to 'below 20,000 observations'... But at the pace that we observe and record, it won't take much to get back there 🙃

Cheers, - Claire

Thanks to our EwA team for participating great species sightings. We did well this weekend!

One of our favorite sighting this WE: a gorgeous cicada that Joe spotted while bioblitzing at the Great Walden Bioblitz 2019 > https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/28353778 (© Joe MacIndewar)

We had such a great EwA team run at the Great Walden Bioblitz in Concord Massachusetts (in honor of our dear Biodiversity world advocate, E.O.Wilson)! Thanks to our team: Shilpa, Dan, Joe, MA, Charlie, Sarah, Jackson, and Claire.

Special thanks to Shilpa and Dan who are our 2 EwA 'power' iNat observers this Weekend. Shilpa recorded 293 observations in one day of 190 distinct species, and Dan recorded 256 observations of 119 species. To date, all together, we recorded about 840 observations of 419 distinct species. Realize that we're not counting here what we could not take a picture of, and yet identified (these got listed on paper lists, and other counting recording platforms) :-)

We worked well as a team: we split into smaller groups over different areas. We have great recorders (Shilpa, and Daniel), wonderful spotters (Joe, and MA), and studious and enthusiast interns who are learning the ropes of biodiversity (Charlie, Sarah, and Jackson).

🔎 Check our team iNat sightings » https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/ewa-at-the-great-walden-bioblitz
🔎 Join EwA’s iNat Biodiversity Projects » https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/ewa-biodiversity-projects

ⓘ Read more about the GW Bioblitz » https://www.walden.org/great-walden-bioblitz/
ⓘ Read more about Peter Alden (naturalist & friend) » https://peteraldenwildlife.com/

bioblitz #UrbanWildlife #CitizenScience #biodiversity #conservation #nature #naturePhotography #natureDocumentation #entomology #insect

There we go! The 2019 City Nature Challenge's results are finally out!

First of all, the challenge gathered 32,682 observers worldwide. This led to a recording of 911,210 observations!

In the Boston area itself, for which we serve in the organizing committee, we had 1,107 observers who gathered a total of 20,329 observations!

How about EwA's effort? We rock! Together with you we gathered about 1200+ wild observations over 373 different species (in less than 12-15 hours of events total)! We surveyed more than 8 locations. We covered 11 taxa over a category of 12! The only taxon that we did not cover is the chromista... Oh well - next time ;-)

EwA Results:
∗ Total [1212 records / 313 species ] » https://tinyurl.com/ewa-cnc2019-results
∗ The Fells [527 records / 214 species] » https://tinyurl.com/ewa-cnc2019-fells-results
∗ Lusitania [231 records / 102 species] » https://tinyurl.com/ewa-cnc2019-fpr-results
∗ Draw Seven Park [186 records / 68 species] » https://tinyurl.com/ewa-cnc2019-draw7-results

This year, we engaged a total of 79 participants+: 40 participants across 9 sites, and 39 2nd-degree participants (through the participation of the students of 2 of our high school teacher colleagues).

Our project supplied about 5% of all the Boston area observations! Our top collector, who tried to record the distinct species that we observed during our events, is the 5th who had the most diverse records (over 1087 observers)!

And, worldwide, our top collector (and representative of EwA), with your help made us be part of the 1% top observers (species-wise)!

For us (young EwA), that's quite an achievement! Last year, there was about only 5 of us doing the challenge and we collected 180 observations of 80 different species -which was already quite something :-)

You want to know all the exciting details? We'll publish a full detailed report later this year (sign up to our newsletter > https://www.earthwiseaware.org/newsletter/).

And thanks again to all of you, who observed, identified or supported this important effort to document wild organisms worldwide. You rock! 💚

ⓘ More... CNC 2019 in Numbers:
∗ EwA City Nature Challenge 2019 » https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/ewa-city-nature-challenge-2019
∗ City Nature Challenge: Boston Area » https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/city-nature-challenge-2019-boston-area
∗ City Nature Challenge: Worldwide » https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/city-nature-challenge-2019

biodiversity #bioblitz #natureDocumentation #citizenScience #openScience