Great Southern Bioblitz 2021 southern Africa umbrella's Journal

The GSB team have proposed the following challenges for new participants who are struggling to find their quest.

Here they are:

Friday: #5onFriday

start off by making 5 observations. of anything that you see on Frday 22nd .

Saturday #Mothnight

on Saturday 23 hang out a white sheet outside and shine a light on it. Leave it up for an hour, and then snap some pictures of your winged visitors.

Sunday #shakeatree

on Sunday 24th spread a white sheet under a tree. Give the tree a shake. What falls out? Great activity to do for kids big and small. Snap pictures of your critters. Finish off with a picnic.

Monday #listenandsee

on Monday 25th close your eyes and listen. What can you hear? Upload an audio observation.

Grab your binoculars or a magnifying glass. What can you see? Upload something that you have never seen before, as well as something that you have.

Feeling more adventurous?

Saturday Moth Night:
https://greatsouthernbiobl.wixsite.com/website/post/tips-on-moth-hunting

Sunday is Sea Slug Sunday: the tides are great!!
Some ideas here: https://greatsouthernbiobl.wixsite.com/website/post/sea-slug-sunday.

Got some questions? Ask them below.

want to start with the IDs?

https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/identify?project_id=great-southern-bioblitz-2021-southern-africa-umbrella

Alternatively, get out there in the rain and go frogging!!!
https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/rainfrogs-of-cape-town

Well day 1 is over almost worldwide.

Cape Town, eThekwini and Overstrand feature in the top 10 for observations and species.
Looking forward to the weekend and more great observations.

At this stage southern Africa contributes

6,606 of the 28,991 observations
2,109 of the 7,075 species
and
320 of the 2,097 observers

Today's worldwide feature is the Moth Challenge tonite! Go get your moths!

Why not share some of your highlights below?

We are done observing - the 2021 Great Southern Bioblitz is finished.

Now we have just over a week to upload our observations and identify them.

So any summaries are provisional, but I think we can agree that overall we have done very well, and several areas have done outstandingly.

• We have four regions in the top 10 observations
• We have four regions in the top 10 species

• We have two regions in the top 10 observers.
  Well done everyone, and a special thanks to the organizers and coordinators:.

Some of us will take a day or two to finish uploading, but with any luck all your uploading is done.

If you wish to start with identifications.

Round 1: clear observations without any identification:
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/identify?quality_grade=needs_id%2Ccasual%2Cresearch&iconic_taxa=unknown&project_id=great-southern-bioblitz-2021-southern-africa-umbrella
Round 1 consists of 2,600 observations at present.

Round 2: clear those that need to get to research grade:
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/identify?quality_grade=needs_id%2Ccasual&project_id=great-southern-bioblitz-2021-southern-africa-umbrella
At this stage 68% of our observations are Needs ID - so quite a task ahead of us

(if you need a refresher on how the identification curator works, please see https://vimeo.com/246153496

Current statistics:
Total observations at midnight: 31,848
Observations casual: 1,202 (4%)
Observations Need ID: 21,539 (68%) of which 2,609 (8%) have no ID at all!
Observatoins Research Grade: 9,117 (29%)

Yes, I know, we have another 10 days before the Fat Lady sings. And things may well change drastically before then: BUT

Well done Cape Town!!!
We are finally there: we have exceeded our 2010 figures. They are:
observations: 16,245 (and climbing - lots of users still busy, vs: 16,097)
species: 2,320 vs 2,120 &
observers: 288 vs 266

So Cape Town dominates the leaderboard - only one other city has half as many observations, and only 5 other cities have more than half as many species (and three are from South Africa!)

Let us not forget:
Overstrand, Ethekwini and Garden Route - in the top five for observations
Garden Route, Overstrand and Ethekwini - in the top six for species
Overstrand in the top 5 for observers
Do we have some really serious competition for Cape Town? Looks like Overstrand are set to give us some seriously stiff opposition for next year!
But things are still fluid: observations are still being posted, and most IDs are still outstanding.

Over 250 cities/regions/countries took part in the Bioblitz, so this is no mean achievement. Well done to all participants and organizers and everyone who had great fun!!

Also deserving mention on the subcontinent are: Tshwane, Zimbabwe, Zululand and Nelson Mandela Bay, not to forget Zambia and Limpopo, all who posted over 500 observations.

It is time to forget about the observations and focus seriously on the identifications. Please within your speciality, go through and make identifications. Please help.

The best way to make IDs is with the ID curation tool. Please. It is really efficient and a great aid. This is how it works (a 2 min tutorial): https://vimeo.com/246153496

Summaries for groups and areas will follow below. Please use the links and help!

DEADLINE FOR ALL IDS TO BE COMPLETED: 5 November.