We received this interesting opportunity from P-Patch Community Gardens and we share it with you.
Hello P-Patch gardeners and pollinator lovers!
Would you like to be more of a naturalist in your own P-Patch? Sharpen your artistic and scientific eye for local biodiversity? Photograph your local pollinators, and thereby contribute to a growing database on pollinator sightings in Seattle?
Well, we have an online community meeting place for you!
Introducing UPP’s project to document local Seattle pollinator diversity on the global naturalist website iNaturalist. iNaturalist is a wonderful online resource where thousands of amateur and professional naturalists post photos, help each other identify species, and communicate about their sightings. iNaturalist is made up of many different local “projects”, to which anyone can submit photographs., and the Urban Pollination Project has an iNaturalist project on Seattle pollinators. See the FAQs below to learn how to participate!
FAQs
Q: Do I need to be a P-Patch gardener to participate in this aspect of the Urban Pollination Project?
A: No! Anyone can post photos to our iNaturalist project.
Q: How can I find UPP’s iNaturalist project online?
A: Simply follow this link. Or google “iNaturalist” or hen click on “Projects” (across the top of the screen) and type “Urban Pollination” in the search bar that appears.
Q: How do I make an iNaturalist account?
A: Choose a username and make up a password, then log in each time you visit.
Q. How can I upload my photos/observations to share them as data?
A. In order to submit observations to the project:
1. Make an iNaturalist account.2. Go to the link provided in this email or search “Urban Pollination” on iNaturalist to go to our project, where you will need to join it. 3. Click on “Add observations”.
a. Please enter date and location plus comments
b. If you know the species, you can enter it. If you don’t, don’t worry! You have an option to say “species unknown”, and a little box you can check that says “ID please”—if you check this box, others can help identify it and leave you notes about it.
c. Upload your photos by clicking in the box that says “Select one or more photos” and searching for the correct file on your own computer. You can also choose to “sync observations with photo metadata”, meaning that if the photo comes tagged with date and GPS location, it will automatically be added.
You can upload directly from the fieldif you have a smartphone, by getting the iNaturalist app (free through iTunes—just google “iNaturalist app”). Then your photos will automatically be tagged with a GPS location and a date, making them instant data! Otherwise, you can photograph with a digital camera and upload from home, making sure you have recorded date, time, and location.
Q: Is this project related to BumblebeeWatch?
A: Not directly, but we will share all these observations with Bumblebee Watch as well as using them to monitor our Seattle pollinator diversity.
If you have any trouble with iNaturalist, creating observations, adding observations to the project, or any other concerns, please feel free to email us at urbanpollinationproject@gmail.com. We’ll help as best we can. If you would like to see an example account that is full of observations, feel free to check out the one belonging to senior UPP field intern Tessa Forbes, at this link: http://www.inaturalist.org/observations/tessaf