Help testing a demo project

Hi folks,
Reaching out to you for a little short-notice help… I’ve been working with a group of partners who will be implementing a Lights Out Texas campaign across Dallas, Fort Worth, Houston, Austin, and San Antonio this spring, and one of the planned activities is bird-building collision monitoring. The group has decided to use iNaturalist for a portion of the data collection, aiming for some specific information beyond the iNat basics that can be used for some more targeted analyses. We’ve got a “sandbox” traditional project to test out some of the custom fields before setting up the actual live project.

The ask: would you be willing to join the project and share 1-3 bird observations (they DO NOT have to be collisions/dead, just birds) and fill out the project fields so we can get a sample dataset and make sure this is all working properly?
BirdCast Monitoring TEST: https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/birdcast-monitoring-test

Don't worry about being exact about what goes into the fields (routes, addresses, and corresponding eBird list); this will all be explained to participants in the project protocol (in development), so right now anything will be fine.
Hope everyone is staying safe and warm(ish). Thanks for your help!
Tania Homayoun
Texas Nature Trackers, TPWD

@sambiology @craighensley @connlindajo @mako252 @mikaelb @brentano @gcwarbler @centratex @kathrynwells333 @mikef451 @nanofishology @ncowey @phototime @sheliahargis @tompat

Posted on February 11, 2021 09:41 PM by taniahomayoun taniahomayoun

Comments

Sure thing, Tania! A worthy project; thanks for your work on it!

Posted by kathrynwells333 about 3 years ago

@taniahomayoun Tania, I was able to add a new (duplicate) observation directly through the link you provided, but, even after joining the project, I was unable to add existing observations to it. (The green "Add to Project" button remained grayed out.)

Posted by kathrynwells333 about 3 years ago

Yes, I'd be glad to add some observations although I'm further east than where your project will be and rural (not too many lights here and hopefully it'll stay that way)

Posted by phototime about 3 years ago

I will be glad to help as I am able. I am in a rural area so am not exposed to birds that collide with buildings.

Am I understanding correctly? I can add observations of birds that are not dead to test the project?

Posted by connlindajo about 3 years ago

I've joined but it looks like I am unable (at present) to add any observations to the project either on the observation page or under "Edit Observations" because the project has several required fields.

Posted by gcwarbler about 3 years ago

Tania
I entered an observation and got an error message. I am sending you an email with a screen shot of the message and some questions about the Test Project.
Patsy

Posted by tompat about 3 years ago

@connlindajo Yes, you have that totally correct! The birds can be live, dead, whatever - we're just trying to test this before releasing it, and all the comments about issues adding to the project are exactly why I wanted to test this before we set up a real "live" project.

Posted by taniahomayoun about 3 years ago

I'll check it out over the weekend, if my power stays on! :)

Posted by mikaelb about 3 years ago

I added three observations and "played" with a few others. I learned that in the initial observation upload, I can add it to the project as long as I fill out the required 6 observation fields. Won't go otherwise. Also can add an old observation to project, again, as long as all the observation fields have something entered.
Let me know if further input needed. ljc

Posted by connlindajo about 3 years ago

@taniahomayoun Tania, I went back and played with this some more this morning. I discovered that I WAS able to add previously uploaded observations to the test project. I realized that I had to choose "Add" after each completed field in order to "unlock" the green "Add to Project" button at the bottom.

Posted by kathrynwells333 about 3 years ago

Yes Tania, I will try to help out.

Posted by mikef451 about 3 years ago

@kathrynwells Another thing I discovered while messing with it. I keep forgetting it.

Posted by connlindajo about 3 years ago

Thank you so much to everyone who's been testing this and leaving feedback... I really appreciate it! As with pretty much everything in Texas, the conversations around the final collision monitoring protocols were delayed by the winter storm this past week, but I'll update when I know more about where things are going. Hope everyone is safe and as well as can be expected after Ice-pocalypse 2021!

Posted by taniahomayoun about 3 years ago

Hi All, We're about to launch the final version of this project as the protocols are just about finalized. As such, the project name has been changed, and I'm going to remove all of our observations so we have a clean slate to work with as data associated with the project start coming in this spring. A HUGE thank you to all of you for making time to test this project as it was in development! Final project here: https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/lights-out-texas-monitoring

Posted by taniahomayoun about 3 years ago

Super, Tania; happy to help!

Posted by kathrynwells333 about 3 years ago

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