Welcome to the 2023 New England Plant ID-a-thon!
Welcome, everyone, to the 2023 New England Plant ID-a-thon! We had such fun – and such success! – last year that we’re doing it again this year. (Here’s the link to last year’s project: https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/new-england-plants-id-a-thon-feb-25-27-2022) So, reserve 7 PM, Friday, Feb. 24, to 7 PM, Sunday, Feb. 26, for 48 hours of intensive plant identifying. Think of it as getting ready for the field season!
Please actually join the project; here's the link to the project home page, where you'll see the Join button toward the upper right: https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/2023-new-england-plants-id-a-thon-feb-24-26. Joining the project is the only way you’ll get notifications of these vital and scintillating journal posts I make, in which I will give some hints on how to identify efficiently, make some predictions, cheer us on through the 48 hours, and compare our results with a “normal” weekend of identifying. And if anyone wants to write a post about, say, identifying pondweeds or Rhynchospora or even hybrid oaks or whatever, just let me know. I am happy to share.
Unlike most iNaturalist projects, we won’t be adding observations to this project, neither automatically nor one-by-one manually, unless they are particularly beautiful photos or you’d like some assistance in identification.
Here, I’m going to invite everyone who joined last year, or who makes a lot of plant observations or identifications in New England, or is a friend of mine in real life whom I want to bring into the plant identifier fold. If your name isn’t on this list, you are absolutely welcome anyway, and everyone should feel free to invite anyone else. And feel free to ask questions, too, either as comments to this post or to me personally via private message.
@adamkohl, @agave6_tomwalker, @amandammvt, @anaturalfocus, @apgarm, @arethusa, @azik, @berkshirenaturalist, @bmvig, @brothernorbert, @bryanconnolly, @bryanpfeiffer, @btk, @carl291, @cbuelow45, @ceaustin, @ceiseman, @cgbb2004, @charlie, @choess, @cschorn, @danlharp, @davidenrique, @deb59, @deparia1950, @dogwoodvalley, @donlubin, @dorothy, @doug_mcgrady, @ellsp, @ericpo1, @frousseu, @gpalermo, @greensnake879, @guidobrusa, @jackcadwell, @jformanorth, @jljones, @judyasarkof, @julie_richburg1, @karenlombard, @karro_frost, @kcbowmanphd, @kebsearcy, @kpmcfarland, @margaretcurtin, @maryah, @mcharpentier, @mikeakresh, @mjpapay, @mnerrie, @mohale, @moxiel, @mradik, @mtjones, @natemarchessault, @nebotany, @nick2524, @nmes, @nsharp, @ntepper, @patswain, @peakaytea, @petersmj, @polypody, @radbackedsalamander, @rherold, @rynxs, @sally_jacobson, @slamonde, @someplant, @srall, @stephanieradner, @tarpinian, @thomashulsey, @threepogonias, @tmurray74, @tomaszavada, @trscavo, @tsn, @vicki_l, @vickidoo, @wanderingeden, @wernerehl, @wojciech
Comentarios
Thanks for organizing, Lynn! Last year was fun and looking forward to doing it again. Native Plant Trust has their central New England Plant Conservation Volunteer training on the 25th (at least for newbies) so that will be our 'rest' break for those of us that might be attending.
Oops, I don't remember -- How do I join the Project?
Boy, you're fast, @natemarchessault! I didn't know that NPT was doing their PCV training on the 25th - I'll have to ask about that for next year. But it's great you're a PCV - I learned a lot when I was one.
@patswain hit this link! https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/2023-new-england-plants-id-a-thon-feb-24-26
OK, I'll look, but I think I have already identified all the fern observations in the target area, except for a few I skipped.
@donlubin, your dedication to fern identification is much appreciated, and I bet there aren't many left that can be identified to species.
Very excited, but I'll be away until late on the 25th. I'll have to make up for it on the 26th - laundry can wait another day.
Once the project starts, will it become obvious how to align my ID location to that of the project?
@donlubin, the short answer is you don't have to do anything.
The longer answer: There's no automatic way to assign your IDs to this project. You could add the project name manually to each observation, but that's a lot of work! Instead, what I do is look at the "normal" number of plant IDs in New England the weekend before the ID-a-thon to get a baseline idea of how many IDs normally happen. Then I track the overall number of plant observations that disappear from Needs ID during the blitz and make the assumption that any difference between the weekends is due to our efforts during the project. Not a perfect method, but it gives a general idea.
Here's a link to the journal post I made last year where I explained how I calculated the "normal" level of IDs: https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/new-england-plants-id-a-thon-feb-25-27-2022/journal/62296-almost-that-time
And here's the link to the journal post at the end of last year's project, where I compared the blitz weekend to the normal weekend: https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/new-england-plants-id-a-thon-feb-25-27-2022/journal/62396-final-numbers-and-some-thoughts-and-questions
I hope I can help this year, even though I'll be travelling to Texas that weekend for a wedding. at least I'll have something to do during the layovers in the airport.
The project is about identifications, but the statistics seem to be all about new observations.
@donlubin, I'm not sure what you mean. When you say statistics, do you mean where I wrote in a different journal post about how many identifications were made last weekend?
No, not a journal post.
Above the species to identify, there are lists of new identifications, new species. If on looks at personal statistics, shows how many observations one has made. Is there a list of all the participants paired with how many identifications each has made? What is the link to it? Isn't that the main thrust of this project?
@donlubin, there isn't a list of all participants with how many identifications each has made. I am not sure how I could gather that information. To me, the main thrust of this project is for all of us together to work on plant identifications in New England, and it's OK whether a person makes 10 IDs or 1000 IDs. It all helps!
Where are you seeing a list of species to identify? Any plant observation in New England that has a photo and needs an ID (meaning it is neither Research Grade nor Casual) is fair game for this project. We are not focusing on any particular species.
If you look at the City Nature Challenge project, of which you were a participant, you could see such a list.
It encourages people to make more identifications if they can easily see how many they have done so far.
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