Diario del proyecto Southwest Louisiana Master Naturalists

You've probably noticed that our iNaturalist project works differently now and if you've tried to add your observations to this project, you probably got an error message.

It's ok, this is good news! We no longer have to manually add observations to the project--we actually can't anymore. As long as your username is listed in the settings of the project, it will include your observations! All your observations, anywhere in the world will be included in the project.

There is a tradeoff, though. Now, when you look at your observation, it won't say that it is part of our SWLA Master Naturalist project anymore. That's because the new project works a little bit like a search rather than the older style projects.

Check out the project web page though, because there are lots of cool new features. For instance, you can see a leaderboard, cool interactive graphs, recent observations, and the most popular observations.

Start spreading the news!

From April 27th to 30th, we're asking everyone in Lake Charles and all of Southwest Louisiana - residents, visitors, commuters, students, teachers, pedestrians, park lovers, parents, children, EVERYONE - to become citizen scientists and help us make as many iNaturalist observations as we can. The City Nature Challenge 2018 is a friendly competition between more than 75 cities on six continents – see the full list of cities here. Let's put SWLA on top!

The City Nature Challenge 2018: Southwest Louisiana is being organized by the Southwest Louisiana Master Naturalists. For this event, SWLA is composed of Allen, Beauregard, Calcasieu, Cameron, Jefferson Davis, and Vernon parishes.

@robjamax, @dmax, and @ilouque are currently putting together a Facebook group to help organize and get the word out. During the event, we'll need the super iNat users of Southwest Louisiana to really get out and make some observations! @heteromyid, @pmpalmer, @barbara32, @mikedever, @tommorris, @tommy12, @virginia08. All observations in the 6 parish area will automatically count towards the CNC.

If you're out of town, you can still help by identifying the observations in the CNC iNat Project.

Join the CNC iNat Project to stay informed (joining isn't a prerequisite to participating though).

If you've transitioned to iNaturalist's new observation page, you may have seen the Annotations on the right side of the page right below the map and Community ID. This is a feature that iNaturalist is employing to make collecting a little bit more data easier. Currently for animals it allows you to mark the sex and life stage of the organism. For plants it allows you to mark the sex and phenology.

For your observations (in this project or others), try using this feature. It's especially useful for plant phenology but can also be useful in research about generations in butterflies and moths or other organisms. If you like it, you may find your observation skills improving as you notice more details about the organisms you're observing. It's definitely something I notice more in my own observations.

Here's an example of an animal observation with annotations filled out: http://www.inaturalist.org/observations/6757141.

Here's an example of an plant observation with annotations filled out: http://www.inaturalist.org/observations/4680225.

This project is the official Southwest Louisiana Master Naturalist iNaturalist project and was created to highlight the contributions of Southwest Louisiana Master Naturalists to iNaturalist. It is only open to SWLA Master Naturalists and master naturalists in-training who are encouraged to submit observations during all official SLAMN workshops and any naturalist outings on their own anywhere in the world.

Anyone in this project is also encouraged to join and submit their observations to any other projects in which their observations would be of use.

For more information about the Southwest Louisiana Master Naturalists, visit our website at www.swlamasternaturalists.org or like us on Facebook: www.facebook.com/SWLAMasterNaturalists.