Diario del proyecto India's Nature - Monsoon Beauty

Southern most record of the rare Yellow Pasha Butterfly - observed by @rajabandi

Herona marathus so far, is known only from North-East states in mainland India and Andaman Nicobar Islands. Southern most record of the species in mainland India is from West Bengal
See records on [ifoundbutterflies.org(https://www.ifoundbutterflies.org/#!/sp/679/Herona-marathus).

See Indian Records on iNaturalist

The current record from Northern-Eastern ghats of Andhra Pradesh in Visakhapatnam district, is a significant range extension of the species. Also, this is the southern most record of the species in mainland India.

Eastern ghats of Andhra Pradesh are known for some Himalayan relict species (including flora and fauna). Earlier multiple other north-east butterfly species like Great Nawab (Charaxes eudamippus ), Vagrant (Vagrans egista) are recorded from the same region. But Pasha (Herona marathus) is recorded for the first time in the region. Multiple individuals are observed and recorded indicating the presence of species in the region and negating the chances of one-off migratory sighting.

Congratulation @rajabandi this is a wonderful find. And as mentioned this is not a one off, or random ,or vagrant sighting. There have been repeated sightings in Andhra Pradesh since this first find.

Images

Bengaluru -- Guided session to learn the basics of iNaturalist with Chayant Gonsalves

1. Guide - @chayantgonsalves (Chayant Gonsalves)
   a. Send a message to @chayantgonsalves or @ram_k on iNaturalist or message Chayant at 9740197015 to register and coordinate

2. Number of Participants - 8 / Eight
3. Date - Sunday 5th September 2021
4. Start Time - 3PM
5. Venue - Guruskool Farm, Chikkamaranahalli - https://maps.app.goo.gl/XJ1Bd5y441TUYjim7
6. Type of Property - Private
7. Duration: 2 Hours
8. Trail Description : Very accessible, some portions have mild undulations
9. Preparation: Shoes, rainwear, ample water, notebook+pencil. Snacks, binoculars & separate camera all optional
10. Hazards: Minor terrain undulations, mosquitoes in shaded areas
11. Expected Highlights: plant + invertebrate diversity, bird life
12. Access to the Start Point - Public transport is difficult here, personal vehicle/ carpooling highly recommended

13. Fees - Rs 750/- per person
    a. Does not include travel, refreshments, or any other personal expenses

Hyderabad (Secunderbad) Introductory Inaturalist Nature Walk with Swarochi Tathagath (@odonut)

1. Guide - @odonut (Swarochi Tathagath)
   a. message @odonut directly for coordination

2. Maximum Number of Participants - 5 / Five
3. Date - Sunday 5th September 2021
4. Start Time : 7 AM (flexible on mutual discussion - cut off time 08:30)

5. Venue - OPPOSITE Bhavans Sri Ramakrishna Vidhyalaya, Sainikpuri, Secunderabad
   a. Start Point https://goo.gl/maps/2sPfSMqUAMJzXKwHA

6. Type of Property - Limited Public Access
7. Duration of the walk - 2 Hours
8. Trail description - Tephrosia, heliotropes cover the area. Not a very long trail but a very good one.

9. Preparation - Full pant & shirt there to prevent bugs from biting. As For the rain that might happen, a rain coat and umbrella will do the job. Andgood shoes are needed for any field trip
   a. Some biscuits or something and bring a water bottle as it might get hot here.

10. Hazards if any - slightly rough trail (like all nature trails). Protect your ankles. Pain relief spray (or something) may be got but not essential.
11. Expected Highlights - well good flowers and a lot of typical blues which would be lifers for many
12. Access to the start point - Easily accessible by own vehicles. By Bus one may come close and then walk. But best is to hire a smaller vehicle or come by your own. Car Pooling is recommended.
13. Any fees - None

Munsiari (Uttarakhand) Introductory Inaturalist Nature Walk with (Ramnarayan)

1. Guide - @ram_k (Ramnarayan)
   a. message @ram_k directly for coordination

2. Maximum Number of Participants - 8 / Eight
3. Date - Sunday 5th September 2021
4. Start Time : 10 AM

5. Venue - Malla Sarmoli
   a. Start Point - Sarmoli Village

6. Type of Property - Village Forest Commons & Parts of Private Land
7. Duration of the walk - 4 Hours
8. Trail description - Trail elevation 2200 to 2400 metres. Path along long term fallow scrub, Grass plots, and cold temperate forests ending in a forest pond.

9. Preparation - Full pant & shirt, light sweater. Umbrella or rain gear. Sandals or Gumboots recommended as some parts will be wet.
   a. Trail Snacks, Thermos with tea recommended.

10. Hazards if any - Village and Forest Trail - slippery, wet. Leeches (odomos recommended)
11. Expected Highlights - Butterflies, Wild Flowers, Beetles and Bugs, Some birds
12. Access to the start point - Accessible by walk from the main Munsiari Bazaar

13. Any fees - None for Local Community members. Rs 500 per person for others.
    a. Does not include travel, refreshments, or any other personal expenses

Dear Friends

The amazing Monsoon Beauty event ended at 00:00 hours midnight of 5th /6th September 2021

We are taking some time to organise the results and will share them soon.

Meanwhile we would like you to share your favourite observations (or interactions)

You may share your observation as a simple posting of link with a comment - preferably @ tag the observer

For posting images (Inaturalist ones only) there is no drag and drop so one must use for html coding options to share images. To help with this we have posted a simple how to below.

Nominate your favourite observations from the Monsoon beauty 2021 Event

Someone else's observation, or your own. Write what you liked about them.

In the interest of non spamming sanity we request you to post just one, or maximum two observations.

Write to your favourite identifier

Identifiers have been our guides, without them our experience would be so much poorer. Write to them (preferably direct message them) and let them know how valuable their help has been to you personally.

If you would like to share your experiences with some of these fine identifiers you could share that in the comments as well.

Share any interaction that helped you or was relevant

The open and interactive nature of iNaturalist is what makes this community great. If there were any interactions that helped you, or that you benefited from and if they are in the public domain and should you would like to share please do share those in the comments as well.

How to Post images or share hyperlinks with text comments

Sharing an observation from the Monsoon beauty event with a comment and / or an hyperlink

So to post the observation use the following code
Name of the observation / or text you want to appear
Kindly note the Square brackets, the round brackets and the "no space" between them.

Example

The Text This beautifully observed picture of the Green Fruit Piercing Moth from Shillong by @ti_eramal is one of my favourite observation The hyperlink https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/91861584

Will render like this
This Green Fruit Piercing Moth from Shillong by @ti_eramal is one of my favourite observation

How to post an image (from inaturalist)

Click on the image, then right click and copy the "Image address" (URL)
the url for the image of the green fruit piercing moth looks like this -

Example URL https://inaturalist-open-data.s3.amazonaws.com/photos/152014297/original.jpeg?1629475633

Paste as below
img src="your url" (the same url again)
add [< before img And >] after url"

Will Look like this

For more help see this forum post

Kind regards
Ram

Hello Friends

It has been nearly two weeks since the Monsoon Beauty event ended. You must be wondering what happened and why communications have been slow. Apologies for this delay.

The 53 days Journey (from 15th July 2021 to 5th September 2021) can only be described with one word Amazing.

The diversity of the 34000 odd observations is second only to the interest and participation of over a 1000 people (observers and identifiers combined). While it was an event located within the geographic boundaries of India we had friends joining in from all parts of the world. They added richness and expert education.

Some participants have communicated how much they have learned and how much more deeply engaged they have become with the natural world around them. Others have mentioned their positive interactions with other observers and with the so many great identifiers.

At the outset of the programme we had hoped for participation from 10 States or Territories (out of 36). However happily we received observations from 26 States or Union Territories. In some 10 regions we simply could not get people to join, this is a task for the next time.

We have had many new users join in and a significantly large proportion of women (26).

At the start of the event some people had questioned the “Gamefication” of the event through the incentive of awards. This was a risk, and truthfully we have had to deal with some concerns. A minority participated not to learn or contribute but to compete aggressively and their appreciation of nature and the community was secondary to self. They did not even attempt to engage with the community. Some users were indiscriminate and used bad processes in identification, while some observers got hyper competitive and may even have used unfair means to post many observations. In these cases we as event organizers have had to step in and attempt to address these concerns, sometimes we also got help from the iNaturalist Curator / Admin / Help group. For us as event organizers it is a learning we will take forward and incorporate in future events.

Over the next few days we will share some of the interesting outputs from the event, we will look into different taxonomic groups, special records. We will also try and profile some of the people. There have been quite a number of new records for either the country, or individual states, in some cases these observations are a 1st for the world as well. Rare organisms have been documented for the first time in the public domain or have been seen after intervals of over a 100 years.

Below is the list of awards. The awards are based not only on numbers but there has been an attempt to factor in some qualitative parameters as well. Below we have used the inaturalist user names for the participants.

We request all the 1st, 2nd and 3rd places in all of the categories to Direct Message their postal address to us or to send us an email on indiasnature01@gmail.com

We also request them to look at the Event page for the award guidelines and send in their selections as per the category

1 Category One - For Most Overall Observations

1. First Place - @babloo_farswan with 4116 Observation (Using only a mobile smartphone)
2. Second Place - @vivek_nature with 3131 Observations - (Using multiple DSLR cameras and smartphone)
3. Third Place Joint - @navaneethsinigeorge with 1649 Observations (Using only a mobile smartphone)
4. Third Place Joint - @hive with 1346 Observations (Using only a mobile smartphone)

@babloo_farswan is a very new user and worked very hard to not just document but also look at a diverse range of organisms some of which are first records for the State of Uttarakhand and a few of which are 1st records for India.

At the start of the programme @navaneethsinigeorge and @hive were very prolific and led the way for the rest of us. @hive, in particular, posted some fantastic and beautiful observations.

2 Category Two - Most Observations by a Rural Observer

1. First Place - @rajkoranga with 2888 Observations - (Using only a mobile smartphone)
2. Second Place - @kapil_chand with 789 Observations ((Using only a mobile smartphone)
3. Third Place - @negi with 675 Observations (Bridge Camera and Mobile Phone)

@rajkoranga is also a fairly new user of iNaturalist. Using a mobile phone he too has documented an amazing array of high altitude flora and fauna. Some Butterfly observations posted by him are first records for the state since the British Collection Era, seen after an interval of over a 100 years.

3 Category Three -Most Observations in any one of the following states or Union Territories

(Lakshadweep, Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu, Tripura, Mizoram, Chandigarh, Nagaland, Manipur, Punjab)

The minimum Threshold was 150 observations. In only one of these States or Union Territories was there a maximum of only 7 observations posted. Hence this category of award is being scrapped and reallocated to Joint Awards in other Categories

4 Category Four - Most Observations by a New Observer

Most Observations by a new user who Joined after 1st July 2021 and / or has less than 200 observations at the start of the programme

1. Joint First Place - @k_pawan with 1777 Observations - (Using only a mobile smartphone)
2. Joint First Place - @ti_eramal with 639 Observations - (Using only a mobile smartphone)
3. Second Place - @swapnendu_nayak with 789 Observations (Using only a mobile smartphone)
4. Third Place - @nomadash with 476 Observations (Using only a mobile smartphone)

This is the most exciting category. New users who learned during the event and have been capturing and sharing an astounding diversity. @ti_eramal has shared vulnerable frogs and records of interesting plants and flowers.

5 Category Five - Most Identifications

Identifiers are the engine that run iNaturalist Events, without them we would neither be encouraged nor would be learn. During the course of the event 925 people have shared their valuable time and helped us identify many of our 34000 odd observations. We request every one to write to (Direct Message) identifiers and thank them specially for their hard work and effort.

1. First Place - @muddytortoise with1269 identifications.
2. Second Place - @haneesh with 889 identifications.
3. Third Place (Joint) - @borisb with 862 identifications.
4. Third Place (Joint) - @anubhav-agarwal with 851 identifications.

6 Category Six - Jury’s Award - New Women Observers

This award is being presented to new women users. One of the focus areas of this event was to encourage women observers and hopefully we are at the start of a longer and more supportive series of events and processes.

1. First Place - @varsh1 with 572 observations
2. Second Place - @saumya_singh with 337 observations.
3. Third Place - @surabhi_srivastava_gaur with 309 observations.

We are happy to report that there are a fair number of new users. Also at last count there are atleast 26 women participants which is almost 3 times the iNaturalist India average.

7 Special Mention

Some participants were kind enough to share their observations for posting on Social Media. These are their observations

Hispa Beetle - Chosen as the iNaturalist Observsation of the day. Observer @saumya_singh
Green Fruit-piercing Moth - observer @ti_eramal
Common Birdwing Butterfly - observer @rajabandi
Pepper Plant - observer @rajabandi
Volucella Drone Flies & Kin - observer @babloo_farswan
Grasshopper - observer @babloo_farswan
Gaudy Grasshopper - Poekilocerus pictus - observer @jungli92
Typical Orbweaver Spider - observer @kapil_chand
Common Swallowtail Caterpillar - observer @kashif_ali
Common Redeye Butterfly - observer @navaneethsinigeorge
Giant Firefly - observer @krishna31
Thyas juno Moth - observer @aibor
The Vulnerable Indian Star Tortoise - observer @paulmathi
An endangered Tiger seen on or around International Tiger Day - observer @mirza8

8 Tables

8.1 Table 1 - Observers

A total of 103 people poster observations during the course of the project.
This table provides information about the observer, when they joined iNaturalist, and how many observations they had at the start of the programme.
Of the 103 participants 42 qualify (with 150 or more observations) for a Certificate of Participation. This would be sent to them soon.

This data is as on 5th September 2021 at 11:59 PM (23:59) IST

8.2 Table 2- Top 20 Identifiers

Twenty people who identified 300 or more observations are being awarded a Certificate of Appreciation for their efforts in helping the observers with species / genus or family identifications. Only our limited resources prevent us from honouring the identifiers in greater depth.

ram_K as an organizer of the event is not eligible for any award

8.3 Table 3 - Observations & Observers by States or Union Territory

Do send in your comments, and queries either via direct message to @ram_k or post it in the comments below.

Dear Friends

Wanted to share the following three observations that have been chosen as **iNaturalist Observations of the day".

All are part of our Monsoon Beauty Event

Salty Earth Snake Rhinophis sanguineus

observed and recorded with this fantabulous picture by @suryaram90

This photo is the first on iNaturalist and also has the honor of becoming the default taxon picture

Boucerosia crenulata flower observed by @haneesh is another fantastic observation of a rare plant

**This observation of a Genus Hispa - a member tortoise and Hispine subfamily of Beetles

also mentioned in an earlier journal post**
by @saumya_singh has also featured an*iNaturalist Observations of the day*

Congratulations to @suryaram90 @haneesh and @saumya_singh