EwA Insect Survey Training Webinar [#1 Photographic Survey]

[EwA]

I just sent this to new potential volunteers, and I wanted to make sure that I did not miss our regular pheno citizen scientists and naturalists and for those of you interested in surveying insects systematically :-)

Here:  

Finally, we've completed the setup of our insect survey sites for this year, and we are now updating our protocols (will share soon). We're very excited to start the survey season!

We'll run 2 webinars and each of them will go over the respective protocol.
- The first one targets those interested in the photographic survey (and how to record on iNaturalist). Joining this project you'll help local and global efforts to understand arthropod species occurrence.
- The second webinar is for those interested in surveying insect abundance (and how to record on Caterpillars Count). Joining this survey, you'll help the national Pheno Mismatch science project.
These webinars are a great way to gain skills and to know what to expect. So, it's a way for you to make the decision to try 'it' (or not).

First webinar first! Checking your availability

The first webinar is about recording Insect occurrence through photos and uses iNaturalist to store the observations. That survey is basically walking predefined transects at a specific site(s) of your choice (Growing center in Somerville, Fresh Pond, the Fells, or Mass Audubon Habitat when it reopens) and ideally a few times a month during the summer - of course recording some specific information. Nothing hard (other than getting that shot), and an excellent reason to be outside and help save our insects/pollinators!

Training agenda:
In that first training (duration: one hour):
- we'll brief you on COVID 19 protocol (site-dependent)
- we'll show you the EwA site map and the transects
- we'll show you how to takes great pics/observations that are scientifically usable
- we'll brush on wildlife ethics pertaining to the study of insects so that we don't disturb them more than necessary

Here's a When2Meet poll so that you can give us your availability in the next couple of days for next week. Next week would be great for us, and usually the end of the afternoon is better for webinars as we are often in the field during the day (I entered my availability already) > here. I'll maximize attendance :-) Once I have that I'll set up the webinar and send the webinar access info.

It would be greatly appreciated if you answer this email to tell us if you're still interested, and so that we know what to expect. 

Thanks.

ⓘ EwA Citizen Science Programs » https://tinyurl.com/ewa-citizen-science

Cheers, - C