Diario del proyecto Cincinnati Re-Wild - Backyard Ecological Restoration Umbrella

I changed an existing GitHub script to provide links to organisms found visiting or nectaring at plants in a given project. The code relies on the "Plant that the organism was found on" and "Nectar Plant" observation fields.

So for Goldenrods, the URL would look like this for the umbrella...
https://stockslager.github.io/iNat/visiting_my_project.html?project_id=cincinnati-re-wild-backyard-ecological-restoration-umbrella&per_page=30&page=1&taxon_id=48678

Clicking the appropriate links in the table would show the organisms found visiting / nectaring at the different species of Solidago planted across all projects within the umbrella (you can also pass it your individual project in place of the umbrella).

If you don't pass it a taxon_id, it will show every species with an iconic_taxa of "Plantae" within the umbrella and links to any organisms found visiting or nectaring at those species.
https://stockslager.github.io/iNat/visiting_my_project.html?project_id=cincinnati-re-wild-backyard-ecological-restoration-umbrella&per_page=30&page=1

The first ever Cincinnati Re-Wild meet-up will be on Tuesday, October 8th at 1:00.  We'll meet at "The Grail" in Loveland (931 O'Bannonville Rd).  Bring a lawn chair.

The Grail has been an incredibly kind and tolerant idea incubator.  What I mean by "incubator" is a place that allows a certain amount of experimentation around a new idea.  In this case, an iNat seed library umbrella that allows transparency and oversight of seeds collected from private donor properties.  I couldn't think of a better place for the first meet-up.  If there are future meet-ups (and I'm fairly certain there will be) we might have those at individual project locations (project owner willing).

Topics:
1) Network of decentralized regional seed libraries with inventory tracked via iNat observations.  
2) How big does our umbrella of regional yard-projects need to be before it represents an addressable market to a real estate broker (this would allow us to more elegantly pass off our work to the next property owner... regeneration (even assisted regeneration) takes multiple lifetimes so... ).

If you want to add a topic, message me privately or add a comment.

If you are reading this and wondering... is The Grail just being nice to us or are they really interested in what we're doing in our yards? The answer is "yes" they are being nice -or- they are interested. How much of one and how much of the other... no idea! But they absolutely are either nice or interested and that's good enough for me. I would never suggest that they are more interested than they are nice, because they are really really nice. Or interested. :o)

A long-time lurker named Robin Green recently began following our umbrella. I met Robin through a local native plant club that she helps lead and that we both participate in. She's more than the leader of a local plant club. She's also aligned herself with The Grail, a Loveland based organization that has a fascinating history and has recently set its sights on an ambitious greenhouse project that will transform the 70 acre headquarters site while also supplying native plants to local community projects and residential areas...
https://www.grail-us.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/2023-GREENHOUSE-1.pdf

Volunteering to remove invasives at The Grail will help make space for native plants propagated in the new green house. You can sign up at https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSf4-VAGaDLQqtflDpY6-qA87RtJONE9Sz01zHvgVpLGKfg6FA/viewform, or reach out to volunteer@grail-us.org for more info.

image credit - @lovetheland

NKU Refs just announced several Talk & Walks for summer of 2024. I've been happy to rebroadcast some of their walks in the past. They appear to be increasing in frequency so it probably makes sense to invite anyone interested to follow their project, rather than continuing to mirror their invitations here. If you'd like to join and follow, here's the link...
https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/st-anne-woods-and-wetlands-flora-fauna

There's a decent chance others from the umbrella will be at some of these. I'm still working on an elaborate call or hand signal to alert ourselves to each other since we haven't all met. :o)

A new project, "Property in Transition", was just added to the umbrella. The project's goal was to "increase the number of native plants that would provide food and shelter for birds and wildlife." There is an extensive list of species encouraged and species observed in the project "about".

This might be my favorite project. Not because the manager of this project has relocated away from the Cincinnati area. But because they continue following along, watching over us. The former owner, knowing the location of this project, will be able to see if any future owners begin making iNat observations on this property. At this point, it would be possible to alert the new owner to this project and allow new observations to be added alongside the older ones.

The restoration could then continue on in a continuum from owner to owner.

With a large enough community of restorationists it may even be possible to direct properties like this into the hands of future owners more likely to continue on managing properties with the same spirit as the people who started each project. Often, progress toward ecological restoration is lost when partially restored private areas change hands.

I just received a message from @m_whitson alerting me to some pre-Earth Day hikes at St. Anne Natural Areas Woods and Wetlands. Several of you who attended last year remember it as an opportunity to see a lovingly protected wetland where local students and others have an opportunity to learn.

Here's a link to the details...
https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/130249/journal/92670

Last year it was positively loaded with geranium and jacob's ladder. Some other critters made an appearance too!

If you are supportive of the overall mission of Cincinnati Re-Wild but are reluctant to participate too publicly, this message is for you! The best way you can support us is to filter based on this umbrella project on the "identification" page and contribute to the umbrella by id'ing species for the group.

https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/identify?project_id=152539

Each project in this umbrella has dedicated significant portions of their yards to some form of re-wilding / restoration. This can be a lonely existence. Having someone with more knowledge than me identify organisms existing in my backyard can feel like bringing an expert home from the nearest preserve and having them look over my shoulder as I conduct my restoration. I no longer have to show up at the nearest nature center and tug at someone's sleeve to tell them about my backyard. They can "opt in" if they like, by filtering potential identifications for this umbrella thereby confirming the identities of organisms at my place and others like it.

The Big Thicket Umbrella down in Houston is outperforming us in terms of insect species count. Not that it should be a competition. The only thing better than us saving the world is kicking back and watching some Texans do it! @lappelbaum

Cincinnati Re-Wild Insect Species Count...

Big Thicket (Houston area) Insect Species Count...

"A Bit Of Backyard Biodiversity" has been added to the umbrella.  Kayla, the project's owner, describes the project as follows...

This project is my "yard list" of organisms seen at my (and my parents') house in a suburban neighborhood near Cincinnati, Ohio. My mom has created a lovely pollinator garden in the backyard that attracts bees, butterflies, and tons of other bugs. I've been pretty amazed at what wildlife shows up to our little patch of habitat, and I hope my record of it inspires others to similarly adapt their yards to benefit nature.

This project manager has landed in our area "after living in Utah for 10 years" and maintaining a yard project there. She describes herself as "primarily a birder", who will "photograph and upload pretty much anything that looks interesting".  Many of the images in her collection are crystal clear, command attention, and are adorned by concise field notes that complete the story. Like several of us, she has a growing interest in macro photography and we'll look forward to even more images with intricate detail easily revealing the identity of the organisms that sit for her.

Also be sure to check out the ongoing parade of insects nectaring at the Mexican Sunflower featured prominently as this project's icon and in the photo to the right...
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?place_id=any&project_id=a-bit-of-backyard-biodiversity&subview=map&verifiable=any&field:Nectar%20Plant=169780

We all feel different levels of vulnerability depending on the seasons of our lives and our own personal circumstances. When my kids were young and I first started leaving them home alone for short periods of time, I felt more vulnerable than I do now. Consequently, I had my at-home observations obscured. Later, when I wanted to convince online strangers to join my umbrella, I revealed more about myself and my project.

But what if I had regrets? Second thoughts about having revealed myself? What if, after revealing myself, I wanted to return to anonymity? Somehow, I'd have to undo all the "open" observations I've made at home. In my case this would be easy. I already have a "place" for my home project. I can search for all of my "open" observations in that "place" and set them all to "obscured" via batch edit (and then subsequently delete the "place"). But what if I had added them all to a traditional project without an associated "place"? In that case, It would require an additional step but it's still pretty easy.

On the "Explore" page, I can key in my street name and adjust the size of the search area to include observations from my lot and the surrounding neighborhood.

Once the box is re-sized to include all the observations I'd like to include, I can cut and paste the coordinates of the search box from the URL for use on the "Search" for batch edit. Here is the URL for the re-sized search area in the picture above...
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?nelat=39.06549813937679&nelng=-84.34833807526574&place_id=any&subview=map&swlat=39.063041720189155&swlng=-84.35116478188147&verifiable=any

The URL includes...
nelat (Northeast Latitude): 39.06549813937679
nelng (Northeast Longitude): -84.34833807526574
swlat (Southwest Latitude): 39.063041720189155
swlng (Southwest Longitude): -84.35116478188147

If you click "Edit Observations" followed by "Search", the following drop-down is revealed. The four coordinates can be pasted into the appropriate text boxes circled below.

If you then select "Open" from the Geoprivacy drop-down.

Click the "Search" button at the bottom of the "Search" tab. Any observations that remain "open" within this specific search area are revealed. If you only have a couple observations, you can edit them individually. If you have a great many observations, the "Batch Edit" functionality allows you to select ALL of them at once and move them all to "obscured". This functionality allows for fluid anonymity... setting all our at-home observations to and from obscured and open as we each navigate the changing seasons of our lives. I wouldn't advise changing back and forth all the time just for fun. It's probably somewhat "expensive" (from a data processing perspective on the server side) to provide this functionality.

The point is... I don't want to feel like this umbrella is inadvertently encouraging people to reveal more than they are comfortable revealing. I don't think this is the case. But if you find yourself waking up in the night and worrying about someone sneaking onto your lot and digging up your Asarum, just change your at-home opens to at-home obscureds. And if you have trouble doing this... just drop me a line. ~ @stockslager

*** I might start aging journal posts after a period of time for a similar reason. I sometimes quote from the information people provide in their profiles when introducing new projects. When people change their profile descriptions, there is the possibility of their old verbiage still existing in my old journal posts. If I age them, they won't feel trapped in what might be an out-of-date profile description.