This afternoon I bumped into Di Carter in the Port Hills of Ōtautahi-Christchurch, #NZ. Di's a ranger for the City Council.

Di was on Harry Ell track with a handsaw and herbicide, looking for weeds recently reported on #iNaturalistNZ. She was killing evergreen buckthorn and tree lomatia, two woody weeds iNatNZ has documented spreading into Victoria Park.

It's a good reason to report weeds publicly on #iNaturalist.

#WeedControl #CitizenScience

https://inaturalist.nz/taxa/82856-Rhamnus-alaternus

https://inaturalist.nz/taxa/550664-Lomatia-fraseri

@seawall The black morph pīwakawaka are fantastic. Here's the last time I managed to get a photo of one. They don't sit still!

https://inaturalist.nz/observations/152108947

We keep track of the colour morphs on #iNaturalistNZ to find out how the ratio is changing. Here are more black birds: https://inaturalist.nz/observations?place_id=any&verifiable=any&field:Fantail%20phase=black

Meep! Meep!

Here's an interesting observation by Maurice (epitree) on #iNaturalistNZ and #Flickr. It's a NZ pūkeko that's learned to eat old oak acorns. The pūkeko's nimbly holding old acorns with one foot while it eats them.

I haven't seen a pukeko do this yet. It was only in recent decades that the pūtangitangi (NZ paradise shelducks) of Ōtautahi-Christchurch city figured this out and started to regularly visit the city parks to eat acorns.

https://inaturalist.nz/observations/163755503

https://flic.kr/p/2oCWMaJ

#UrbanNature

The City Nature Challenge (#CNC2023) is GO! The 4-day global event started at midnight. The sun isn’t up and Wellington is already ahead, Auckland close behind, and Christchurch trailing. New Plymouth and Hawkes Bay are still asleep.

To join in, just use iNaturalist to make a species observation. Any species. (Preferably lots.) Can you find something you’ve never noticed before?

https://inaturalist.nz/projects/city-nature-challenge-2023-aotearoa-new-zealand

#NZ #iNaturalistNZ #iNaturalist

Aotearoa-NZ has some terrific moths!

Here are four of the most elegant arrivals from a moth night on 6 Feb. 2018, at the Boyle in the north Canterbury Southern Alps. I've just been uploading them to #iNaturalistNZ.

https://inaturalist.nz/observations?on=2018-02-06&place_id=6803&taxon_id=47157&user_id=jon_sullivan

#moths #NZ #Lepidoptera #insects #nature

I chatted with Mark Leishman on #RNZ Nights last night, about the upcoming City Nature Challenge (#CNC2023) and #iNaturalistNZ

You can have a listen here: https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/nights/audio/2018886953/calling-all-citizen-scientists

The City Nature Challenge is happening 28 April–1 May. You'll be able to follow all the action on iNaturalist NZ at https://inaturalist.nz/projects/city-nature-challenge-2023-aotearoa-new-zealand

If you live in one of the NZ city areas entering, be sure to join their city's project to see the events happening.

#iNaturalist #NatureWatching

Aliens have landed in Ōtautahi-Christchurch, NZ!

And they smell bad!

These are two species of stinkhorn fungus, that I saw on my monthly biodiversity run in Port Hills this afternoon. I don't remember ever seeing this many of them at once.

https://inaturalist.nz/observations/155706622
https://inaturalist.nz/observations/155706613
https://inaturalist.nz/observations/155706616

#fungi #Phallaceae #red #alien #Aotearoa #NZ #iNaturalistNZ

This year, five urban areas in Aotearoa-NZ are officially entered into the global City Nature Challenge:

Auckland/Tāmaki Makaurau
Ngāmotu/New Plymouth
Te Matau-a-Māui - Hawke's Bay
Te Upoko o te Ika (Wellington)
Ōtautahi/Christchurch

If you live here, you can join the local project and follow the action.

https://inaturalist.nz/projects/city-nature-challenge-2023-tamaki-makaurau-auckland
https://inaturalist.nz/projects/city-nature-challenge-2023-ngamotu-new-plymouth
https://inaturalist.nz/projects/city-nature-challenge-2023-te-matau-a-maui-hawke-s-bay
https://inaturalist.nz/projects/city-nature-challenge-2023-te-upoko-o-te-ika-wellington
https://inaturalist.nz/projects/city-nature-challenge-2023-otautahi-christchurch

#CNC2023 #iNaturalist #iNaturalistNZ

I spent this afternoon helping prepare #iNaturalistNZ for the upcoming City Nature Challenge (#CNC2023), 28 April–1 May.

People in cities around the world will be celebrating their local #nature. In the 2022 challenge, >68,000 people globally made >1.5 million observations of >52,000 species!

To contribute, just add one observation (or very many) to #iNaturalist during the event in a participating city.

I made an #Aotearoa Yeah Nah project so NZers outside of participating cities can join in.

Earlier this week we ran our 3-day Biodiversity Coast-to-Coast field trip for the #LincolnUniversityNZ course Biological Diversity. This takes us from East Coast to West Coast across Te Waipounamu/NZ's South Island.

Students work in groups to lay out random 10 m by 10 m forest plots at each site, then photograph all the species they can find of certain taxonomic groups.

We'll be uploading our finds to #iNaturalistNZ over the next weeks.

https://inaturalist.nz/projects/ecol202-biodiversity-coast-to-coast-2015-and-later

#university #FieldTrip #ecology

Before the BioBlitz at Muriwai o Whata wetland, there were 62 observations of 45 species on #iNaturalistNZ. We're now up to 1,162 observations of 245 species, and climbing.

Thanks to #EnvironmentCanterbury for organising the great day.

https://inaturalist.nz/projects/muriwai-o-whata-bioblitz-2023

https://inaturalist.nz/observations?place_id=187303&verifiable=any

#BioBlitz #Aotearoa #NZ

Here's a spectacular photo of a kārearea (New Zealand Falcon) that talented bird photographer Steve Attwood took on the weekend in Nina Valley near Lewis Pass, NZ.

This is taken beech forest in the Southern Alps. To get this close and get a photo like this takes legendary skills. I'm in awe.

https://inaturalist.nz/observations/151089200

(Steve shared the photo on #iNaturalist with full copyright so I won't copy it here. If it doesn't show up, you'll need to click the link.)

#falcon #iNaturalistNZ #Aotearoa #NZ

Discoveries are everywhere. I was at a beach with friends on the weekend, and rolled a log (as I do), found and photographed a beetle (as I do), and uploaded to #iNaturalist (as I do).

It's the second #iNaturalistNZ observation of its species, and 7th globally.

This is how knowledge about nature gets built: people sharing interesting things they find. In the old days it was employed/wealthy collectors. Now it can be everyone with a smart phone.

https://inaturalist.nz/observations/150979514

#beetle #Aotearoa #NZ

Here's the first Himalayan Balsam that I've seen in the Wigram Retention Basin of Ōtautahi-Christchurch, NZ. It's a nasty new riparian weed. I pulled it out.

I just uploaded it to #iNaturalistNZ. It's the first observation on #iNaturalist of the weed from this wetland, and there's no herbarium collections of it from here on the Australasian Virtual Herbarium.

It's one to look out for, and pull out if you see it.

https://inaturalist.nz/observations/150552245

#Aotearoa #NZ #weed #wetland

We found this elegant native tiger beetle in our house at the end of last month. I've just uploaded my photos of it to #iNaturalistNZ and #flickr.

It's the first tiger beetle I've seen on our property in Cashmere, Ōtautahi. They're more commonly seen up in the nearby Port Hills.

You tell at a glance that it's a fast "run them down and eat them" predator.

I photographed it and let it go.

https://inaturalist.nz/observations/150276180

#insects #beetles #Coleoptera #Ōtautahi #Aotearoa #NZ

For a lecture yesterday at #LincolnUniversityNZ, I showed the 28 most commonly observed native bird species in the Ōtautahi-Christchurch area on #iNaturalistNZ. I added which are also Australians or have close Australian relatives.

Five arrived in NZ after European settlement. Only korimako and kererū are not also in Australia nor have relatives in their genus in Australia.

1,000 years ago, deep endemic birds would have dominated. Most are now gone.

#iNaturalist #birds #Aotearoa #NZ

@stephane Ah, thanks, and that's just me. Looking at all of #iNaturalistNZ we're up to 172 species from Beckenham Park so far. I bet there's still many more to find too.

https://inaturalist.nz/observations?nelat=-43.56026713882437&nelng=172.64822667126361&place_id=any&swlat=-43.56315923926865&swlng=172.64376347546283&verifiable=any

Here's the observation on #iNaturalist in case anyone wants the details.
https://inaturalist.nz/observations/147439100
#roadkill #iNaturalistNZ

@airshipper @KorimakoEcology Parts of DOC do promote iNat. I expect this is more that wheel reinvention is easier to fund in NZ than wheel maintenance.
DOC has not mentioned any concerns about data sovereignty to #iNaturalistNZ.
#iNaturalist is run by the California Academy of Sciences and US National Geographic, with regional instances around the world, of which iNaturalist NZ—Mātaki Taiao is one. iNat NZ is run as a NZ charitable trust and holds local backups of all NZ #iNaturalist records.

@pogomcl Nice! The last time I saw a small tortoiseshell butterfly, it flew into my office window in Lincoln, New Zealand, in the middle of the 2019 winter.

Yes, the Southern Hemisphere is an exceptionally odd place to see a small tortoiseshell.

To my knowledge, it's still the first Australasian record of the species. It's now on a pin in the Lincoln University Entomology Museum.

https://inaturalist.nz/observations/30721349
#butterflies #Lepidoptera #insect #BiologicalInvasions #iNaturalistNZ #iNaturalist