Hello everyone!
Thanks for reading the December 23 edition of the EwA Highlights. I hope you’re able to find some rest and restorative time outside this holiday season.
📸 As I’ve mentioned before, the relative quiet of winter is a great context in which to learn a little more about the signs of ecological activity you might be walking by every day. Bill spotted a good one that you’ll start noticing pretty frequently if you learn to recognize it: the larval galleries of the elm bark beetle (Scolytus multistriatus). You can recognize elm bark beetle galleries (the patterns left behind by larvae munching through tissue) by their distinctive structure, with many paths exiting a central, straight chamber almost in parallel.
EwA iNaturalist Record (© Bill MacIndewar · Stoneham, MA · Dec. 19, 2023)
The fruiting bodies of fungi are often fascinating due to the intensely varied configurations they can take, merging together into complex shapes. Every once in a while, though, you come across one that is strange for the opposite reason: its shape is almost oddly regular. I’d say that’s the case for this thin-walled maze polypore that Joe spotted, which has completely encircled a small stem.
EwA iNaturalist Record (© Joe MacIndewar · Stoneham, MA · Dec. 17, 2023)
EwA’s naturalists have observed many more birds so far this winter than in previous years. Take the great blue heron (Ardea herodias), this week’s most-observed species. We already have more observations of this bird in December 2023 than we did in the past three Decembers combined. Does this indicate some dramatic boom in winter heron populations? That’s possible, but not the most likely explanation. In all likelihood, this dramatic change is mostly due to selection bias, and I think there’s a good lesson in here as to why a diversity of scope and focus in our projects is so important.
EwA iNaturalist Record (© Joe MacIndewar · Stoneham, MA · Dec. 16, 2023)
If you’ll indulge me, let’s try to give this a highlights-length explanation. When our community posts things on iNaturalist, they aren’t posting every single organism they ever see, and we don’t expect them to. There isn’t even remotely close to enough time in the day. EwA doesn’t have strict guidelines for what to post on iNaturalist either, and as a result what appears on the platform is heavily influenced by where our community is taking observations and what they’re interested in. In this case, a large factor in the bird observation bump has been the growth of our naturalist community at Woburn's Horn Pond, where there are especially many cool winter birds to observe. We have more observations from the Horn Pond area this winter, and thus more observations of its birds.
Bald Eagle (Haliaeetus leucocephalus)
EwA iNaturalist Record (© aussies2 · Woburn, MA · Dec. 16, 2023)
So: what can we learn from the fact that EwA members are observing more birds this December? We can learn that EwA members are documenting more birds they’re interested in! Of course, it’s possible to dig deeper into the data and try to account for this bias. But I think it's a good demonstration of how important EwA’s more-focused projects are, with their ability to provide more consistent and reliable data.
The selection bias in our iNat observations isn't necessarily a bad thing, by the way. As long as we're aware of this bias, it gives us a decent picture of what the community is seeing and learning about, and of the fact that these species are present at all this time of year. I look forward to sifting through them every week and am always learning from them myself.
Thanks for reading this far with me! I thought this was an interesting topic to give a little more attention this week—let me know what you think. To finish things off, here’s a great picture from Heather of the dramatic hooded merganser (Lophodytes cuculattus) mating display I mentioned last week.
EwA iNaturalist Record (© aussies2 · Woburn, MA · Dec. 22, 2023)
📊 Thanks to everyone for your great biodiversity records this past week, totaling 299 observations of 149 distinct species. If you’re curious about the records from this week that have been validated by the iNat community so far, you can find them » here.
🏆 Running tally: To date, we have recorded 171,970 observations of 10,397 distinct species! Check out our EwA umbrella project, see the details per site/observer, and more » here.
📅 EwA Upcoming Public Events
Ewa Field Events » Check the EwA Winter [ Event details and registration » ] Don’t miss some great opportunities to follow the rhythm of the season in our local habitats and in the local wildlife! Space is limited for all our field events. Wildlife ethics is important to us and we seek to avoid putting the pressure on natural habitats which large gatherings unavoidably do. We are asking our audience to register-and-commit (or cancel when you know you can’t come) to avoid no-shows.
EwA Fieldwork (and Resources)
It’s a great time to join our monitoring programs. Check EwA’s Volunteer Program Calendar 📅 to know when things happen. And if a session is of interest to you, don’t hesitate to reach out to get the rendezvous location.
📅 EwA Sites Map | 🌱 Site Protocols and Guides · Field Rosters · Field Notes » All here! | ℹ️ More about EwA’s Citizen Science Program » Here
❓ Do you have any questions? Don’t be shy. Just email me or reply to this thread.
That’s all for this week—hope you have a good one!
-Mike
