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 some10 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 though 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 area 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
- First Place - @babloo_farswan with 4116 Observation (Using only a mobile smartphone)
- Second Place - @vivek_nature with 3131 Observations - (Using multiple DSLR cameras and smartphone)
- Third Place Joint - @navaneethsinigeorge with 1649 Observations (Using only a mobile smartphone)
- 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
- First Place - @rajkoranga with 2888 Observations - (Using only a mobile smartphone)
- Second Place - @kapil_chand with 789 Observations ((Using only a mobile smartphone)
- 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 users who Joined after 1st July 2021 and / or has less than 200 observations at the start of the programme
- Joint First Place - @k_pawan with 1777 Observations - (Using only a mobile smartphone)
- Joint First Place - @ti_eramal with 639 Observations - (Using only a mobile smartphone)
- Second Place - @swapnendu_nayak with 789 Observations (Using only a mobile smartphone)
- 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 interesting 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.
- First Place - @muddytortoise with1269 observations.
- Second Place - @haneesh with 889 identifications.
- Third Place (Joint) - @borisb with 862 identifications.
- 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.
- First Place - @varsh1 with 572 observations
- Second Place - @saumya_singh with 337 observations.
- 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
| Rank |
State or Union Territory |
Observations in the Event |
Observers |
Observations as on 1st June 2021 |
| 1 |
Uttarakhand |
12722 |
34 |
41975 |
| 2 |
Kerala |
4475 |
9 |
86583 |
| 3 |
Tamil Nadu |
3294 |
14 |
50332 |
| 4 |
Chhattisgarh |
3131 |
1 |
25793 |
| 5 |
Karnataka |
2270 |
14 |
79151 |
| 6 |
Odisha |
1821 |
8 |
7842 |
| 7 |
Maharashtra |
1381 |
11 |
106099 |
| 8 |
Andhra Pradesh |
1190 |
2 |
16930 |
| 9 |
Telangana |
1127 |
5 |
7337 |
| 10 |
Meghalaya |
892 |
2 |
6787 |
| 11 |
Himachal Pradesh |
830 |
2 |
7818 |
| 12 |
Madhya Pradesh |
377 |
2 |
9997 |
| 13 |
Uttar Pradesh |
308 |
4 |
6548 |
| 14 |
Jharkhand |
214 |
1 |
2600 |
| 15 |
Bihar |
210 |
2 |
1753 |
| 16 |
Goa |
113 |
4 |
9763 |
| 17 |
Gujarat |
57 |
2 |
21842 |
| 18 |
Assam |
56 |
2 |
52684 |
| 19 |
Sikkim |
44 |
1 |
3109 |
| 20 |
West Bengal |
14 |
2 |
37362 |
| 21 |
Manipur |
7 |
1 |
1242 |
| 22 |
Haryana |
4 |
1 |
4264 |
| 23 |
Punjab |
2 |
1 |
1322 |
| 24 |
Chandigarh |
2 |
1 |
445 |
| 25 |
Rajasthan |
1 |
1 |
13737 |
| 26 |
Delhi |
1 |
1 |
4920 |
| 27 |
Arunachal Pradesh |
0 |
0 |
10441 |
| 28 |
Jammu and Kashmir |
0 |
0 |
3920 |
| 29 |
Andaman and Nicobar Islands |
0 |
0 |
2659 |
| 30 |
Puducherry |
0 |
0 |
2255 |
| 31 |
Ladakh |
0 |
0 |
1992 |
| 32 |
Nagaland |
0 |
0 |
908 |
| 33 |
Mizoram |
0 |
0 |
444 |
| 34 |
Tripura |
0 |
0 |
442 |
| 35 |
Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu |
0 |
0 |
356 |
| 36 |
Lakshadweep |
0 |
0 |
260 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
26 |
|
|
Do send in your comments, and queries either via direct message to @ram_k or post it in the comments below.
Usá ArgentiNat con app iNaturalist
