DC-area meet-up: Sunday July 23 @ Meadowood


Group photo (names in no particular order): Amy, Jen, Matt, Carrie, Ashley, Judy, Michael, Lee, Natalie, Marshall, Holden


Calling all DC-area iNaturalists -- it is time for a mid-summer gathering.

After previously meeting up in suburban Maryland (see @carrieseltzer 's journal post) and Rock Creek Park (see @treegrow 's journal post), let's try Northern Virginia. Near Woodbridge, Meadowood Recreation Area is one of few Bureau of Land Management lands east of the Mississippi, and houses an adoption program for a few wild horses and burros moved from public rangelands in the West. It also has a great mix of habitats and trails with over 450 species recorded so far by the iNat community (over half by @judygva alone!).

http://www.ridetamarack.com/docs/meadowood-trails.pdf

The plan is to meet at the Hidden Pond Trailhead parking area on Belmont Blvd. In the trail map linked above, it is near the bottom in the middle. I will try to arrive around 9am, and will wander to the pond and in the immediate vicinity, including the milkweed Judy references in the comments, for those arriving later. Please add a comment below if you need a ride, or can provide a ride, and we will try to carpool to the extent possible.

If you haven't attended one of these gatherings before, you are welcome! They are loosely organized and fun, very informal, and people can come and go as they please. The group usually spreads out and moves at a naturalist's pace. Impromptu picnics are known to occur. I don't think any of us are axe-murderers.

Here is the iNat project created to compile observations from these DC-area field trips.

Tagging recently active users & participants from previous field trips. Please tag and invite others freely.
@treegrow @carrieseltzer @calopteryx @peggyo @jhammock @briangratwicke @judygva @botanygirl @belyykit @ashley_bradford @elliotgreiner @mellis @achang @jgingold @krosenthal @tminatbe @mmn_noriko @mdnaturalist @treichard @kestrelsparverius @gwh @lorax32 @lynnparsons @tkirk304 @lucareptile @jacobogre @kellykrechmer @annagypsy @kisaacson @etotin @yogagalen @eglaeser @mkoenig @nicocampalans @klthomasart @ecologyelise

Publicado el julio 16, 2017 02:24 MAÑANA por muir muir

Comentarios

Re: carpooling. I should have 1, probably 2 seats, in my car. Prefer to pick up at Eastern Market metro stop, ~830.

Publicado por muir hace más de 6 años

Hidden Pond is not visible from the parking lot, but there is a great field with milkweed that is visible from the parking lot, so that's where I'll be. Later on, we can go to other areas of Meadowood, including an incredible Pollinator Garden. The Mountain Mint there is humming with wasps, bees, moths, butterflies and flies - a real treat. I'm looking forward to seeing you there. Judy

Publicado por judygva hace más de 6 años

Cool! I will try to make it - it would be great to put faces with these names. Judy, do you know the tick situation of this location (as in, should I wear my tick armor :-) ?

Publicado por ashley_bradford hace más de 6 años

Yes, please wear tick armor. This is not nearly as bad as Occoquan Bay NWR, but there are ticks. I'm looking forward to seeing you!

Publicado por judygva hace más de 6 años

I will try my best to be there, a bit far.

Tagging others: @jorbogmont @anacostiabiota @jgingold @michaelskvarla @lakekoshare @pgugger @shinnickj

Publicado por mellis hace más de 6 años

@muir I can't get your "over 450 species recorded" link to work. Does it have a Place Name in iNaturalist? I couldn't find it while searching for Meadowood Recreation Area. Do we need to add this place to iNaturalist?

"No matching places" https://www.inaturalist.org/places/search?utf8=%E2%9C%93&q=Meadowood+Recreation+Area&commit=Search

Oddly it is listed as a place in some observations such as https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/5483476 but I can't seem to open up a page about it.

Publicado por mellis hace más de 6 años

@mellis it would be great to meet you, hopefully you can make it.

You're right. Link is broken. No place created in iNat yet -- let's try to do it before Sunday. With all the private property and funny boundaries of Meadowood, I hesitate to draw it manually, so hopefully we can find a shapefile online or BLM can provide.

In my salamander observation you linked to, "Meadowood Recreation Area" is listed in the Location field (the text of which is controlled by the observer, and not associated with boundaries -- so for example, I could also create an observation in my backyard and call the location, "Matt's house" without creating a polygon for it). Only the Place fields are standardized across iNat, with associated kml files. Make sense? Balance between customization and standardization.

Publicado por muir hace más de 6 años
Publicado por muir hace más de 6 años

Thanks for organizing, @muir! I plan to be there with Natalie. I hope Marshall is coming too? Now that they are bigger we can leave them to their own devices more!

Hope to see many of you there :-)

Publicado por carrieseltzer hace más de 6 años

That's the plan! Glad you can make it. Yes, all should be aware that Carrie and I's children will be there (ages ~3-5) and others are welcome.

Publicado por muir hace más de 6 años

@mkoenig Maddie, next time! Hope to meet you soon. Cheers, Matt

Publicado por muir hace más de 6 años

Hi, Matt,
Meadowood isn't that far from where I live and I was looking forward to going and meeting everyone, but I'm afraid I wouldn't last very long in the heat. If things should change, I know where to find you!

Publicado por peggyo hace más de 6 años

Thanks Peggy @peggyo . That probably means that you're more sane than the rest of us. Feel free to come earlier, meet up and leave before the temperature starts climbing. If the weather forecast holds, there's a slight chance that rain and thunderstorms would chase us back to the parking lot around 1pm. Matt

Publicado por muir hace más de 6 años

Oh, look, carpooling! Yes, please, @muir, I can be at Eastern Market at 8:30. With a large frozen water bottle, I think...

Publicado por jhammock hace más de 6 años

Sorry, meant to reply earlier. Unfortunately, I won't make it this time around. Looking forward to seeing your observations, although they'll probably make me jealous.

Publicado por treegrow hace más de 6 años

Sorry to miss you Katja! I will see you Sunday morning Jen. I'll email you my cell in case you need it. I had another person reach out to me about a ride, so my car is now full.

Publicado por muir hace más de 6 años

OK, not totally ideal to manually create a place in iNat with funky boundaries, but I never heard back from the BLM contact email on their website, so I went ahead and created one for now. Hopefully we can replace it with a more official map at a later date.

http://www.inaturalist.org/observations?place_id=121199

So, as of today, 306 species, 451 observations, and 9 observers. Let's boost all those numbers! Will be humid, bring water.

Publicado por muir hace más de 6 años

Looking forward to tomorrow, despite the heat! If anyone needs a last minute ride, I'm driving from Brookland (NE DC) with room for 2. If you need a ride, please text me at 747-934-3213 (reverse that number--starts with 312).

Publicado por carrieseltzer hace más de 6 años

@muir I updated the place with a more official shapefile I isolated from http://data-fairfaxcountygis.opendata.arcgis.com/datasets/non-county-parks

It increased the count by 1 species! http://www.inaturalist.org/observations?place_id=121199

Hope to see everyone tomorrow!

My #: 240 429 5042.

Publicado por mellis hace más de 6 años

Excellent, thank you @mellis. See you soon.

Publicado por muir hace más de 6 años

It was great meeting everyone today, and thanks for getting me out there, what a special place! I stuck around and went back to the trails after the rain passed. I still have many observations to upload, check these out:
http://www.inaturalist.org/observations/7183825
http://www.inaturalist.org/observations/7183879
http://www.inaturalist.org/observations/7182595

Great netting @muir. Good to see some great camera work out there. I need to invest in macro lenses.

Publicado por mellis hace más de 6 años

@mellis - It was great to meet you too. Hope to see you on another outing.

Publicado por judygva hace más de 6 años

It was really great to meet everyone! Can we get an iNat username list of who was there, other than the people posting here? Since I'm a newbie... Thanks to Matt for organizing, and I'm glad the rain held off long enough to get in a few hours. I have a lot of photo processing ahead of me now.

Publicado por ashley_bradford hace más de 6 años

Here is the list of users who have submitted Meadowood observations from yesterday:

http://www.inaturalist.org/observations?on=2017-07-23&place_id=121199&view=observers

@mellis
@muir
@achang
@ashley_bradford
@jhammock
@lagin6489

Have not yet submitted observations:
@carrieseltzer
@judygva

Am I missing anyone?

Publicado por mellis hace más de 6 años

I think that's everybody. Well done everyone! I'll wait for Carrie and Judy to upload for a final tally, but >350 observations >200 species is really cool. Great to meet everyone -- thanks to Judy for being our local guide to Meadowood, thanks to Michael for finding the file of the place boundaries. Group picture posted on the top of the journal post....

Publicado por muir hace más de 6 años

Great photo - thanks! I'm going to be posting observations from this outing for a while - I took 760 photos, whittled down so far to 722, uploaded 51 observations (of course it isn't one photo per observation - thankfully!), and I haven't even made it out past the first part of the trail yet...

Publicado por ashley_bradford hace más de 6 años

It was really great to meet everyone, I had a lot of fun. Thanks again Matt for organizing! And everyone for helping me with IDs :)

Publicado por achang hace más de 6 años

I should have my observations posted within the next day. I had a great time. Matt, thanks for organizing!

Publicado por judygva hace más de 6 años

Oof! Sorry I'm the slow one. I think I have about 60 observations and I'll try to get them up tonight. I loved meeting all of you and I look forward to the next one! I hear @mellis has suggestions in Prince George's county for our next one... tell us when and where!

I love getting to meet iNaturalists (aka "supernaturalists") in person and hear what you get excited about :-)

Also, everyone should save the date for the Anacostia Watershed Virtual BioBlitz in September 21-24 (@jorbogmont is organizing). No BioBlitz project to link to yet but there is an ongoing one: https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/biodiversity-of-the-anacostia-river

Publicado por carrieseltzer hace más de 6 años

Thanks for the link to the project, @carrieseltzer!

Publicado por ashley_bradford hace más de 6 años

Also, I thought I heard discussion about the computer vision on the website. If you want to try it and you don't have an iPhone, here's the link: http://www.inaturalist.org/computer_vision_demo

It didn't always pull in metadata from my pics, but I did save the link on my home screen so I could use it on my phone too in the field. Android users may want to try that as a temporary measure!

Publicado por carrieseltzer hace más de 6 años

Hi, Carrie: Thanks so much for the link to the computer vision. I just tried it and it's amazing!
Peggy

Publicado por peggyo hace más de 6 años

I have been discussing with coworkers, the Department of Parks and Recreation, Prince George's County would love to host the next iNaturalist outing to Suitland Bog. It''s inside the Beltway, near Joint Base Andrew's.

I am currently trying to catch a sneaky coyote and a flock of wild turkeys there on trail cam to upload to iNaturalist.

Suitland Bog Natural Area
5904 Suitland Rd, Suitland, MD 20746
(301) 627-7755
https://goo.gl/maps/U2hjBkVmDY62

I can pick up folks from the nearby Suitland metro stop.

Publicado por mellis hace más de 6 años

That sounds intriguing! Good luck with the critter cam. :-)

Publicado por ashley_bradford hace más de 6 años

That's great, @mellis! Just tell us when and write a new journal post with all of the details and tag a bunch of people.

Publicado por carrieseltzer hace más de 6 años

I just officially created the place on iNaturalist. This site may hold more endangered species(plants) than perhaps any other known site inside the Beltway, and home to one of Maryland's most famous bogs. The plants are extremely well studied, but the other species are not so well documented.

Current Observations: http://www.inaturalist.org/observations?place_id=121243

Place page: http://www.inaturalist.org/places/suitland-bog-natural-area

It is a must see site for DC-based ecologists.

Publicado por mellis hace más de 6 años

Sounds good. And it could use more iNat observations. Woo hoo PG!

Publicado por muir hace más de 6 años

@mellis when do you want to meet up at Suitland Bog?

Publicado por carrieseltzer hace más de 6 años

Hi all, I'm new to iNaturalist (but not to field observations), and in Northern Virginia. I'd love to tag along on an upcoming get-together if possible! @muir, @carrieseltzer

Publicado por jlechtm hace más de 6 años

Great, @jlechtm! Mark your calendar for September 21-24 if you want to come over to DC/MD for the Anacostia Watershed Virtual BioBlitz: http://www.inaturalist.org/projects/anacostia-river-virtual-bioblitz

@mellis did you want to declare a date for the next meet up?

Publicado por carrieseltzer hace más de 6 años

@carrieseltzer I would love to, but will be out of town. I'll keep an eye out for the next meet up date.

Publicado por jlechtm hace más de 6 años

I have been swamped at work, how does Sunday, September 10th sound for Suitland Bog? @jlechtm @ashley_bradford @judygva @mkoenig @carrieseltzer @muir @alona2

Publicado por mellis hace más de 6 años

I think I will be around then...

Publicado por ashley_bradford hace más de 6 años

Same here - I think I can. tagging @treegrow @peggyo

Publicado por muir hace más de 6 años

Thanks, I should be able to make it.

Publicado por treegrow hace más de 6 años

I can't make the 10th (my husband is running a board game convention that weekend—WashingCon) but I look forward to hearing how it goes!

Publicado por carrieseltzer hace más de 6 años

... aaand my dad just told me he's coming to visit that weekend, so it looks like I'm out.

Publicado por ashley_bradford hace más de 6 años

I would be interested in going. I don't think calopteryx can make it, but I'll let him know. Would appreciate any additional info. Thanks!

Publicado por peggyo hace más de 6 años

Would it just be three of us? Should we reschedule? The rest of my September schedule is full.

Publicado por mellis hace más de 6 años

My husband would be coming with me, but it's not a problem if you need to reschedule.

Publicado por peggyo hace más de 6 años

I just found out that I have to take my son and his wife to the airport on Sunday.

Publicado por peggyo hace más de 6 años

Still planning on it. Would bring wife and son.

Publicado por muir hace más de 6 años

I'm planning to come and may bring a friend.

Publicado por judygva hace más de 6 años

Possibly. Can I bring Dave?

Publicado por abookb hace más de 6 años

@mellis I recommend making a new post and tagging all the locals who have made observations in the last month (or at least the list tagged above). Only people who have commented on or been tagged into this thread recently will know about Suitland Bog on the 10th.

Also, @abookb, are you related to @eliana? I met @eliana at Earlham a couple of years ago and introduced her to iNat. I recall she's from MD, and Bookbinder isn't a very common name... :-)

Publicado por carrieseltzer hace más de 6 años

What time do we want to meet? How about 10am?

Publicado por mellis hace más de 6 años

@abookb, of course bring Dave! @carrieseltzer, @abookb is my co-worker, and @eliana is her daughter, what a small world!

Publicado por mellis hace más de 6 años

For thoes that may have missed it, here is the post regarding tomorrow's meetup, hope to see many there!

http://www.inaturalist.org/journal/mellis/11488-dc-area-meet-up-sunday-september-10-suitland-bog-md

Publicado por mellis hace más de 6 años
Publicado por muir hace más de 6 años

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