Diario del proyecto 2021 Ontario Botanists' Big Year

For those joining the project for the first time, the Big Year rules are as follows:

1. All observations must be from within the province of Ontario
2. Observations must be made between January 1 and December 31, 2021
3. Observations must have a photo
4. Observations must be of wild plants. This is always a contentious one. "Wild" means that a) the organism was not deliberately planted by humans and b) the organism is clearly established and reproducing independently of human intervention. Yes, there is some grey area (what to do about plants introduced outside of their native range as part of "restoration" projects?), but in general, make an effort to observe plants that form part of the natural ecosystem (which can include non-native species).
5. Observations must be submitted before midnight on December 31, 2021, to count towards the competitive stats. For those not feeling competitive, the project will always be open and you can contribute observations indefinitely.

Have a great year of botanizing!

-Will V

This year's Big Year challenge is to keep it local and observe as many plant species as possible within 50 km of your home.

In previous years, I've challenged Big Year participants to make it into the "1,000 Club" of naturalists who have observed over 1,000 plant species in a year. For 2021, I'm still going to give a little something to the 1,000 Club, but there will be a very special prize for anyone who can observe over 1,000 plant species within 50 km of their home. I'm going to make the bold suggestion that this is possible at virtually any location in Ontario (and remember that the Big Year isn't limited to vascular plants - you can submit mosses, liverworts and even algae).

Instructions

STEP 1: Look up the latitude and longitude (decimal degrees) of your home or preferred starting point. You can use Google Maps, a GPS or a variety of other online tools.

STEP 2: Copy and paste the following URL into your browser:

https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?d1=2021-01-01&d2=2021-12-31&iconic_taxa=Plantae&lat=0.00&lng=0.00&radius=50&user_id=any

STEP 3: Insert your latitude, longitude and username into the URL as shown below.

This should bring up all of your observations of plants in 2021 within 50 km of your starting point. For example, the following URL should show you all of my observations with those parameters: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?d1=2021-01-01&iconic_taxa=Plantae&lat=43.3153&lng=-80.3658&radius=50&user_id=wdvanhem

Remember to click on "Map" to see your 50 km circle and observations.

STEP 4: At the end of the year, take a screenshot of your map and post it here!

What about obscured observations?

If you've made an observation within 20 km of the edge of your circle and obscured the location, there's a chance the obscured coordinates will fall outside of the circle and wouldn't be captured in the search parameters above. As far as I can see, there's no way to include these. While some observations are obscured automatically (some threatened species) and there are certainly valid reasons to manually obscure other observations (e.g. to protect the locations of sensitive species or habitats or to obscure the locations of private properties), I encourage participants to leave observations unobscured if you want to make sure they get captured within the search circle.