Diario del proyecto Long Point BioBlitz 2022

The event is just a couple of days away! I'll be sending out an information sheet to all team leaders, organizational staff, and registered participants later today. The weather is looking good, and it appears that we'll have a small but dedicated crowd.

Most of you are already experienced iNat users, but if you're relatively new to the platform, it'd be a good idea to make sure you are familiar with the basics of iNaturalist (how to create and upload observations in the phone app; how to log in, add observations, and view projects on the full website). You might also practice with your camera or smart phone camera, experimenting with settings to get the best possible images of small subjects. When photographing a subject for iNaturalist, it's a good idea to take multiple photographs; having more than one angle on a subject will make an identification more likely. There is rarely any point in uploading photos that are badly blurred, show only a very small image of the subject, or are otherwise deficient. Note the "zoom" feature on most smart phones is a bit of a boondoggle: it's a "digital" zoom, not an "optical" zoom. So you tend to end up with a large but blurry and pixellated image. The key to successful iNat photography is usually getting close to your subject and using only moderate zoom.

We will be running a moth sheet or two at the Long Point winter parking lot on Friday night, setting up around 8:00 and turning the lights on when it gets dark. This is a first for me; I have no idea how effective our equipment will be at attracting insects, nor do I have much sense of what we might find. But it'll be a fun experiment! You're invited - bring insect repellent, a head lamp, and your phone or camera to take photos of whatever shows up.

Thanks to everybody who was involved in making our first Vineyard bioblitz a success! The species count will be an evolving process, but at present, counting iNat records and what I anticipate for bird records in eBird, we will probably come out around 300 species for the day. An impressive total!

Particular thanks to The Trustees of Reservations for hosting the event and running the aquatic seining program; to our group leaders -- Luanne Johnson, Pete Gilmore, Shea Fee, Margaret Curtin, and Greg Palermo -- for contributing their time and expertise; to Sammi Chaves for her logistical support and energetic field work; and to the participants who brought their interest and enthusiasm to the project. The species total included several first iNat records for the Vineyard, and in general the work everybody put in made a real contribution to the study of nature on Martha's Vineyard.

As always, my personal day in the field left me in awe of the habitats and biodiversity of our little island.

Let's do it again!

Some delayed contributions to iNaturalist have increased the species count for this bioblitz to 311! If anyone else still has observations to submit, please upload them sooner rather than later so we can confirm IDs and add them to our tally.

-Matt