An Aspiring Naturalist Learns His Place
Today I managed to surpass the total taxa count of my 1000 species attempt in 2012 (at least as measured by iNaturalist). As of today, I have 882 unique taxa for the year, with 792 identified to species. In 2012, I had 881 and 789. Of course all of these numbers are subject to change … Read more
As yesterday marked the end of the first half of the Sitka Big Year project, and the weather was not super inspiring (low clouds, wet, and with a bit of a breeze), I decided it would be a good day to work on catching up on my organization and reflecting on the progress so far. … Read more
With one month down in the Sitka Big Year Project, I find my personal list well ahead of my 2012 pace. That year I had only 60 species, with all but four of them birds. In 2012, I was not photographing everything I counted, nor did I observe (for the list) winter plants. So it’s … Read more
Today gave me reason to consider the baseline level of effort I want to give to the big year project. With work calls and other work tasks to take care of, I didn’t have as much time outside, and with winter’s short days, that did not leave a lot of daylight for observations. I considered … Read more
2017 got off to a clear start here in Sitka. I got up relatively early to go count birds for the annual Christmas Bird Count. This year I was participated by counting birds on the water (via boat with Kitty L.) and one of the residential islands near town. Although it was an excellent day … Read more
About an hour before the close of 2016, I finally finished up posting observations from 2012 to iNaturalist. Over the past few months I’ve imported observations of all the unique species I recorded in my phone, plus all the photos I took during that year’s 1000 species project. As I write this, my iNaturalist species … Read more