SA iNaturalists - January 2021 Update
The start of 2021 brought relatively mild weather for much of January, with a single rain event resulting in higher than average rainfall for much of Greater Adelaide, and a short hot spell sparking an extensive bushfire in the hills.
This January saw a 64% increase in observations from January 2020 with 6,354 observations covering 1,671 species from 320 observers. There were 116 species receiving their first iNat record in SA, and 55 new observers contributing their first observations to iNat. Upon those observations, 487 identifiers contributed a total of 11,106 identifications.
Uploads for SA now stand at 170,603 observations of 7,264 species from 2,707 observers, with 3,374 identifiers providing 311,703 identifications.
February is 'Mozzie Month'. Starting this month Mozzie Monitors is running a 6 week monitoring program. If you spot any mosquitoes, take a photo and upload it to iNat. The observation will automatically be included in the Mozzie Monitors project. Further info here.
A Collection Project has been setup to track observations around the section of the St Kilda Mangroves and Saltmarsh experiencing die-off. To keep up with what's going on, head over to the Save St Kilda Mangroves website.
On Jan 24th a bushfire sparked near Cherry Gardens in the Adelaide Hills took off on the 40+ degree day and raced across Scott Creek Conservation Park and through the woodland surrounding Mount Bold Reservoir. Along the same lines as several bushfire recovery projects set up last year, I've set up a Collections Project to track observations from the burnt sections of Scott Creek CP. The project Bushfire Recovery - Scott Creek CP (2021-2024) is set to run over 3 years and will automatically collect any observations recorded within the area. Currently the park is closed for safety reasons.
The City Nature Challenge is returning for 2021 with observation days April 30th to May 3rd. The Greater Adelaide area will be participating again, along with at least six other cities around Australia. Sign up to the Greater Adelaide project to stay informed.
Top contributors & species observed in January:
(Data used for this post taken on the 8th of February. It excludes any observations from January that were uploaded after this date)