#wildcounts — Public Fediverse posts

I've been counting birds on my bike work commute between Christchurch and Lincoln, NZ, since 2003. On Friday, I counted my *first ever* Kōtuku Ngutupapa, Royal Spoonbill, on the route.

It was feeding in a paddock that had been recently scraped clear preparing it for a housing subdivision, but in the meantime had filled with water after a heavy rain. There are also restored wetlands nearby that I hope was what attracted it in. Perhaps there will be more.

#birds #nz #spoonbill #EcologicalMonitoring #wildcounts #UrbanEcology

https://inaturalist.nz/observations/340743507

I've been counting birds on my bike work commute between Christchurch and Lincoln, NZ, since 2003. On Friday, I counted my *first ever* Kōtuku Ngutupapa, Royal Spoonbill, on the route.

It was feeding in a paddock that had been recently scraped clear preparing it for a housing subdivision, but in the meantime had filled with water after a heavy rain. There are also restored wetlands nearby that I hope was what attracted it in. Perhaps there will be more.

#birds #nz #spoonbill #EcologicalMonitoring #wildcounts #UrbanEcology

https://inaturalist.nz/observations/340743507

I've been counting birds on my bike work commute between Christchurch and Lincoln, NZ, since 2003. On Friday, I counted my *first ever* Kōtuku Ngutupapa, Royal Spoonbill, on the route.

It was feeding in a paddock that had been recently scraped clear preparing it for a housing subdivision, but in the meantime had filled with water after a heavy rain. There are also restored wetlands nearby that I hope was what attracted it in. Perhaps there will be more.

#birds #nz #spoonbill #EcologicalMonitoring #wildcounts #UrbanEcology

https://inaturalist.nz/observations/340743507

I've been counting birds on my bike work commute between Christchurch and Lincoln, NZ, since 2003. On Friday, I counted my *first ever* Kōtuku Ngutupapa, Royal Spoonbill, on the route.

It was feeding in a paddock that had been recently scraped clear preparing it for a housing subdivision, but in the meantime had filled with water after a heavy rain. There are also restored wetlands nearby that I hope was what attracted it in. Perhaps there will be more.

#birds #nz #spoonbill #EcologicalMonitoring #wildcounts #UrbanEcology

https://inaturalist.nz/observations/340743507

I've been counting birds on my bike work commute between Christchurch and Lincoln, NZ, since 2003. On Friday, I counted my *first ever* Kōtuku Ngutupapa, Royal Spoonbill, on the route.

It was feeding in a paddock that had been recently scraped clear preparing it for a housing subdivision, but in the meantime had filled with water after a heavy rain. There are also restored wetlands nearby that I hope was what attracted it in. Perhaps there will be more.

#birds #nz #spoonbill #EcologicalMonitoring #wildcounts #UrbanEcology

https://inaturalist.nz/observations/340743507

Here are four of the many things I found taking my camera for a run this afternoon in Ōtautahi-Christchurch city, NZ.

Curious European greenfinches on a wire (one twisted around to look at me): https://inaturalist.nz/observations/335927660

A late instar caterpillar of an Australian yellow admiral butterfly that I found feeding on a European dwarf nettle: https://inaturalist.nz/observations/335927656

A mallard duck swimming on the Heathcote River with the *best* reflections (I took a lot more photos of the swirling patterns on the silver water): https://inaturalist.nz/observations/335927802

A mushroom of what I think is the native *Pluteus readiarum*, growing on the dead stump of a planted ribbonwood tree: https://inaturalist.nz/observations/335927658

#nature #WildCounts #Ōtautahi #Christchurch #NZ

We live in an age of unprecedented, rapid environmental change. One of my personal responses to this, as a trained ecologist, has been to consistently count as many of the changes in nature around my city as I can. I've got a series of regular routes around the city where I map and count all birds, butterflies, assorted other insects, plants and fungi, and vertebrates. Hence "JonCounts".

I just tallied up my biodiversity surveys and observations from 2025:

52 weekly and 12x2 monthly run routes: total distance 1,095 km
240 daily and 12x3 monthly bike routes: total distance 6,898 km
225,516 species observations, including transcriptions from 466 hours of field audio notes
~60,000 photos
1,225 audio recordings of species vocalising

that's plus my automated AudioMoth recordings and monthly timelapse phototransects

This creates an enormous amount of data curation work, which I typically chip away at over my summer holidays, like now (at the moment I'm correcting errors in the automated transcriptions).

#wildcounts #nz #EcologicalMonitoring

The last three days I've been along the Port Hills of Ōtautahi-Christchurch, NZ, doing my monthly biodiversity surveys. Saturday was my 117th run up through Victoria Park and Sugarloaf, and today was my 80th bike ride along the Summit Road from Cashmere.

Since September this year I've added 27 AudioMoths along the routes to record bird songs, so now I come back with an iPhone filled with audio notes, a camera filled with photos, and now a pocket filled with bird songs to analyse.

Here are some photos of the scenery from each of the three days, plus today's handful of bird song.

#EcologicalMonitoring #nz #Ōtautahi #Christchurch #wildcounts

Here are some birds from my run survey today through southwestern Ōtautahi-Chirstchurch, NZ.

A kererū perched in a tree up Dyers Pass Road: https://inaturalist.nz/observations/324289256

A juvenile riroriro (NZ grey warbler) in a patch of planted native trees at Wigram Retention Basin: https://inaturalist.nz/observations/324289262

A greylard duck on Heathcote River with reflections (I liked the reflections): https://inaturalist.nz/observations/324287847

California quail in Cracroft Caverns Reserve (behind Princess Margaret Hospital): https://inaturalist.nz/observations/324289258

#birds #nz #Christchurch #wildcounts #iNaturalistNZ

I was running down off the hills this afternoon as part of my monthly biodiversity survey of this Port Hills route. I was carrying cameras and a monocular and a wind-shielded microphone plugged into my phone.

A couple of young guys biked up the hill on their mountain bikes.

"Capturing the birds?" one of them asked, curiously.

"Yeah!" I replied.

"Premium," he nodded.

There wasn't time to explain that I was capturing more than bird observations. Still, here are two of my afternoon's "premium" bird observations.

😄

https://inaturalist.nz/observations/314079214
https://inaturalist.nz/observations/314079214

#nz #ChristchurchPortHills #Ōtautahi #Christchurch #birds #nature #BiodiversitySurvey #wildcounts #iNaturalistNZ

More #AWSTranscribe fun(?) fixing up errors in the transcriptions of my biodiversity survey notes. Here are some of the latest highlights:

"ammonia mascara" = Amanita muscaria
"Paradise showdown" = Paradise shelduck
"fire blood" = flower buds
"back to back goal" = black-backed gull
"craig walker song" = grey warbler song
"bloody of the video" = Buddleja davidii
"Nick Deira and Yada Lavi" = Nyctemera annulata larvae

I don't recommend the ammonia mascara, but then Amanita muscaria is a poisonous mushroom.

Nick Deira and Yada Lavi sound like a lovely couple. Anyone know them?

#TranscriptionError #wildcounts

Today I did my monthly biodiversity run up into the Port Hills of Ōtautahi-Christchurch city, NZ. That takes my out of the Cashmere suburbs through the planted native forest and grasslands of Victoria Park and up into the old growth and naturally regenerated native forest of Sugarloaf peak.

I've been doing this route monthly since 2016, mapping and counting out birds and butterflies and assorted plants and fungi.

Here are some of today's highlights.

I had a close encounter with a kererū, perched about 1 metre from me (always a treat): https://inaturalist.nz/observations/297848998

A kahukura (red admiral) was feeding from exotic Viburnum flowers: https://inaturalist.nz/observations/297849009

Some scarlet pouch fungi were lighting up the forest floor on Sugarloaf: https://inaturalist.nz/observations/297848989

The one taramea (Aciphylla subfabellata speargrass) that I know of is still up by the Summit Road and looking healthy: https://inaturalist.nz/observations/297848991

#nature #WildCounts #UrbanEcology #EcologicalMonitoring

Check out what I saw on my afternoon run through Cashmere, Christchurch, NZ.

This was on one of my fortnightly ecological survey runs through the city, 12 km, which I started in 2008. Today is the first time I have seen a tūī on this route!

Yeah!

https://inaturalist.nz/observations/289447711

#birds #tui #nz #EcologicalMonitoring #wildcounts

Here are four of the native birds from my weekly #wildcounts while hanging out or bringing in my laundry.

Korimako (NZ bellbirds) are trending up, and are more often in our garden in the winter.

Piwakawaka (NZ fantail) are doing the same.

Kererū (NZ wood pigeon) are much more common than they were originally. It wasn't until 2017 that I counted my first kererū from the laundry line.

Riroriro (grey warbler) are declining (and I don't understand why).

(Tauhou, the silvereyes, which I've not added a graph for here, are abundant and show no long-term trend.)
3/4

#EcologicalMonitoring #wildcounts #nz #birds

Here are four of the local butterflies from my weekly #wildcounts while hanging out or bringing in my laundry.

Kahukura (NZ red admiral) are trending up, and are more often in our garden in the summer.

Native coppers are trending down (here I've combined the winter copper and glade copper as I don't always stop to chase them to ID which species it is). I don't understand this as their host plant grows nearby.

NZ blues are trending up. I didn't see my first one from the laundry line until 2022 and I've them occasionally since.

Monarchs (the American species, which is wild here) show no trend (we don't plant swan plants so they just fly through).

(The Australian Yellow admirals show no trend, and I see them less frequently than the NZ endemic kahukura.)
2/4

#EcologicalMonitoring #wildcounts #nz #butterflies

Just before Covid knocked me over at the end of last week, I was fortunate to present a talk at the AGM of the Summit Road Society. That's the long-running local community group dedicating to maintaining and restoring the nature and heritage of Christchurch's Port Hills (NZ).

I was asked to talk about how nature has been changing in the Port Hills. Since I live in the hills, I started my talk with our garden. The laundry line, to be exact.

Every time I hang out or bring in our laundry, I count the local birds and butterflies. I've been doing that consistently since March 2012. It allows me to easily see how nature is changing in my garden.

I hadn't updated my graphs since 2023. To keep things simple, the graphs and analyses I showed just use the presence/absence of each species each time I'm at the laundry line (although I also make counts). If you didn't want to count individuals, you could just tick presence/absence and you'd also start to see trends.

I call this kind of simple, consistent, high frequency counting of nature, #wildcounts.

You might be interested in the trends that are appearing. Some species are trending up, others are down, and I don't always understand why.
1/4

#NZ #EcologicalMonitoring #Ōtautahi #Christchurch

I saw a cabbage white butterfly (Pieris rapae) flying by this afternoon, in Ōtautahi-Chirstchurch, NZ, which was a big surprise.

I just checked and this is the first time ever that I've seen a cabbage white adult in June. I've been monitoring butterflies in the city since 2003 and have >37,000 cabbage white observations in my #wildcounts database. Me seeing one in June is officially weird.

Also, none of the 1,983 observations of cabbage whites from the Canterbury Region on #iNaturalist are adult butterflies in June.

I'd be interested if anyone sees more.

This, and daffodils coming into flower, and flowering cherries starting to bloom, all before winter kicks in, suggests that some animals and plants are getting thoroughly confused by the warming climate.

#nz #butterflies #Lepidoptera #Ōtautahi #Christchurch #phenology #GlobalWarming #ClimateChange

You may think this is a photo of a daffodil flowering in the spring, but no, I'm in Christchurch, New Zealand and we're in autumn approaching winter. This is one very confused daffodil.

I pass this patch of plants every two weeks as part of my regular #wildcounts biodiversity monitoring of the city, and the earliest I've previously seen this patch start flowering was 10 June 2023, when they were also weirdly early.

I've never seen a regular daffodil in flower in May before. My observations from 2014 and 2015 have them coming into flower in the city in mid- to late-August.

https://inaturalist.nz/observations/284183251

#BloomScrolling #flowers #ClimateChange #phenology #nz

I was at home with online meetings today. Some people doodle. I sit by an open window and jot down when I see and hear my favourite wild animals.

It's often quickest to write on paper and enter later. I just typed in today's notes, mostly NZ bellbirds (Bellb) plus fantail (Ft).

I also track the bellbird song types. The main local male song is "doot Doot DEET Doot DEet doot" and females were singing "DEET DOot DEEt Doot DEet".

I know it's odd. 😄

#EcologicalMonitoring #wildcounts #nz #birds

I'm off to bed but my computer cranks on. It's using #BirdNet to ID all the bird songs recorded by our garden's #AudioMoth from the first half of the week, while an R script is hooked into AWS to transcribe the 772 geotagged audio notes I made today on my monthly 12 km run up from the city through Victoria Park and around the native forest on Sugarloaf peak.

Some parts of our crazy Big Tech timeline I'm OK with. 😄

#wildcounts #EcologicalMonitoring #nz

I'm off to bed but my computer cranks on. It's using #BirdNet to ID all the bird songs recorded by our garden's #AudioMoth from the first half of the week, while an R script is hooked into AWS to transcribe the 772 geotagged audio notes I made today on my monthly 12 km run up from the city through Victoria Park and around the native forest on Sugarloaf peak.

Some parts of our crazy Big Tech timeline I'm OK with. 😄

#wildcounts #EcologicalMonitoring #nz

I'm off to bed but my computer cranks on. It's using #BirdNet to ID all the bird songs recorded by our garden's #AudioMoth from the first half of the week, while an R script is hooked into AWS to transcribe the 772 geotagged audio notes I made today on my monthly 12 km run up from the city through Victoria Park and around the native forest on Sugarloaf peak.

Some parts of our crazy Big Tech timeline I'm OK with. 😄

#wildcounts #EcologicalMonitoring #nz

I'm off to bed but my computer cranks on. It's using #BirdNet to ID all the bird songs recorded by our garden's #AudioMoth from the first half of the week, while an R script is hooked into AWS to transcribe the 772 geotagged audio notes I made today on my monthly 12 km run up from the city through Victoria Park and around the native forest on Sugarloaf peak.

Some parts of our crazy Big Tech timeline I'm OK with. 😄

#wildcounts #EcologicalMonitoring #nz

I'm off to bed but my computer cranks on. It's using #BirdNet to ID all the bird songs recorded by our garden's #AudioMoth from the first half of the week, while an R script is hooked into AWS to transcribe the 772 geotagged audio notes I made today on my monthly 12 km run up from the city through Victoria Park and around the native forest on Sugarloaf peak.

Some parts of our crazy Big Tech timeline I'm OK with. 😄

#wildcounts #EcologicalMonitoring #nz

Here are some photos from my bike ride home from work today in the rain.

There's one of two kererū up a tree: https://inaturalist.nz/observations/255274497
and two mute swans on the river: https://inaturalist.nz/observations/255274495
and a pohutukawa tree coming into bloom: https://inaturalist.nz/observations/255274496
and, of course, I was speaking nature observations into my phone as I rode, with my phone and microphone protected from the rain in a plastic bag.

#nature #BikeTooter #bikes #WildCounts #EcologicaMonitoring #iNaturalist #iNaturalistNZ

You know how you go for a run but it's slow going because you're looking for myrtle rust on all the planted ramarama hybrids and then you spot a mating pair of Zorion guttigerum flower beetles on the flowers of a ramarama hybrid and you've got to stop briefly to photograph them?

Maybe that's just me. 😄

They're a stylish pair of beetles though.

https://inaturalist.nz/observations/254478857

#nature #entomology #beetles #Cerambycinae #nz #Ōtautahi #Christchurch #flowers #iNaturalist #wildcounts

"chongli me to hi one"?

I've just automatically transcribed my 19,848 audio notes from November, from my ecological surveys around Ōtautahi-Christchuch, NZ. I spoke nature observations into my phone for 3065 minutes (51 hours), mostly while biking and running.

Now I've got some data cleaning to do. Most transcriptions come through spot on, or close to it, but the odd one is like "chongli me to hi one". Here I said "chaffinch song left mid ahead one".

#wildcounts #EcologicalMonitoring #nz

I make lots of geotagged audio notes of wild species as I bike. Today I've *finally* retired my trusty original iPhone SE, and shifted my set-up to use a newer iPhone.

The challenge has always been to maintain clear recordings, despite the wind, while keeping up with gear being broken by the road vibrations. I've been through many microphone cables over the years. This week the headphone jack started failing on the iPhone.

We'll see how long the new set-up lasts.

#wildcounts #BikeTooter #nz

I found these along my ecological survey today through the Port Hills of Christchurch, NZ.

Masses of European green aphids feeding on the tips of the native plant Senecio glomeratus. https://inaturalist.nz/observations/247442365

Coprosma lucida leaves covered in the native coprosma rust fungus. https://inaturalist.nz/observations/247442372

Megabombus bumblebee on a flower of a wild alkanet. https://inaturalist.nz/observations/247442373

Locally rare colour morph of Scotch broom with orange and yellow flowers. https://inaturalist.nz/observations/247433484

#NZ #wildcounts #nature

Today I did my monthly wild counts survey up in the Port Hills of Ōtautahi-Christchurch, New Zealand, mapping and counting assorted species.

It was a cool and windy day, but still a satisfying adventure. This was my 103rd survey of this 12 km route, which takes me from the edge of the city up into wild native forest and back.

Here are some views along the public walking tracks.

#Ōtautahi #Christchurch #NZ #wildcounts #EcologicalMonitoring

Here are some things I found on my weekly wildcounts run about Ōtautahi-Chirstchurch city, NZ, this afternoon.

> intense orange of a patch of orange-peel fungi
https://inaturalist.nz/observations/230682136

> kowhai trees blooming in yellow
https://inaturalist.nz/observations/230682131

> an overwintering late-instar magpie moth caterpillar, black with orange and blue spots.
https://inaturalist.nz/observations/230682130

> two kererū taking a break on a street light before feeding on tree lucerne
https://inaturalist.nz/observations/230682143

#UrbanEcology #wildcounts #nz #nature

Each month I run 12 km up from the edge of the housing in Cashmere in Ōtautahi-Christchurch city, through Victoria Park, and around the tracks in the old native forest on the back of Sugarloaf. Along the way I map and count a bunch of species (eg all birds) and take photopoints.

Today was my **100th survey** of this route.

Here's the upper Harry Ell track in July 2017, 2018, 2021, and 2024, showing the gradual recovery after the February 2017 fire.

#EcologicalMonitoring #wildcounts #nz

It was raining on my bike ride home from work tonight so my iPhone and microphone get wrapped in plastic bags, so I can continue to count the wild as I ride.

As I do.

🙂

https://wildcounts.org/blog/2018/06/02/How-to-count-the-wild-on-a-smart-phone-in-the-rain

#EcologicalMonitoring #wildcounts #nz #BikeTooter

I had an excellent two word conversation on my run today.

I ran passed someone walking along the street, then abruptly stopped ahead of them to photograph a wild plant in a garden.

"iNaturalist?" they said, as they passed me.

"Yep", I replied, and I ran passed them again.

😄

#iNaturalist #iNaturalistNZ #WildCounts

That's shorter than the elaborate conversations I sometimes have with people, explaining what I'm doing running through their neighbourhood taking lots of photos.

I spent part of today manually checking AWS Transcribe transcriptions of my audio field notes from my wild counting. Here are some of the quirkier recent errors:

Zelda Zannier [Amphipsalta zelandica]
pseudo panics fox [Pseudopanax ferox]
F you The video [Buddleja davidii]
fashion mind hopper [passionvine hopper]
little big a stony eye [Muehlenbeckia astonii]
here from Paris [Senecio vulgaris, which is true, it's from Europe]

#wildcounts
#MachineLearning

One of the notable birds from my Port Hills bike ride yesterday was kōtare, the NZ kingfisher. I saw 5 on them riding to Lincoln. They like to perch on power lines, especially in the farmland, where I expect they catch lizards and small birds.

Over 59 monthly rides since 2019, my median count per ride is 1. I once saw 6 kōtare, in April 2021, but otherwise <5.

There's no clear long-term trend. In this age of environmental change, that's good news.

#birds #WildCounts #NZ #EcologicalMonitoring

For a workshop talk I'm working on, I looked up the public biodiversity data for Ōtautahi-Christchurch, #NZ. #iNaturalistNZ has 282,811 observations. #GBIF has 407,858 obs (incl. 115,098 research grade obs from iNat). I tallied up how many #wildcounts I've made from Ōtautahi, mostly from my bike rides to work and my weekend runs, and it's about 1,584,522 observations. So, about 4x everything else!

It underscores how very little biodiversity monitoring NZ does.

#EcologicalMonitoring

Here's a map of where all the korimako/NZ bellbirds were along my bike ride yesterday. As usual, they avoided the farmland and built areas, and were all up in the hills where the native forest is.

#Birds #wildcounts #NZ

Here are 3 Australian critters I saw on my run yesterday in Ōtautahi-Christchurch, NZ. All are recent arrivals to the city and are spreading.

Little humped spiders showed up in 2014 and have since spread out to Pegasus, Leeston & Little River.

Passionvine hoppers showed up in Christchurch on iNaturalistNZ in 2016. They've exploded since & eat a wide range of plants.

Steelblue ladybirds first showed up in Christchurch in 2020.

#BiologicalInvasions #nature #EcologicalMonitoring #nz #WildCounts

In 2022, I added flax notcher and scraper moth damage to the species I map along my standard runs through Ōtautahi-Christchurch. The caterpillars make distinctive damage on flax leaves (as I first learned in high school). In hindsight, this was crazy to try to map while running, but the results are fascinating! Flax cultivars are now widely planted in gardens, but almost all of the herbivory is on the old flax up in the hills.
#EcologicalMonitoring #WildCounts #Phormium #AotearoaNZ #Herbivory

Here's all the kererū I saw in 2022 along my standard run routes through Ōtautahi-Christchurch. Kererū are large fruit & leaf eating forest pigeons. They're most common in native bush of the Port Hills, plus enjoy the fruit of all the wild poroporo that's grown up after the fires. They venture into the suburbs at the base of the hills, especially when garden plums are fruiting. Also, some now breed in the Botanic Gardens!
#EcologicalMonitoring #WildCounts #Birds #AotearoaNZ #kererū #Hemiphaga

Here's a map of all the miromiro (tomtits) I saw and heard in 2022 along my standard run routes through Ōtautahi-Christchurch. Miromiro are endemic insectivorous forest birds, and much more common deeper into Banks Peninsula. The only place along my standard city run routes that I've ever heard or seen them is in the original native forest of Sugarloaf. There's nothing like the real thing when it comes to native forest.
#EcologicalMonitoring #WildCounts #Birds #AotearoaNZ #miromiro #Petroica

Here's a map of all the miromiro (tomtits) I saw and heard in 2022 along my standard run routes through Ōtautahi-Christchurch. Miromiro are endemic insectivorous forest birds, and much more common deeper into Banks Peninsula. The only place along my standard city run routes that I've ever heard or seen them is in the original native forest of Sugarloaf. There's nothing like the real thing when it comes to native forest.
#EcologicalMonitoring #WildCounts #Birds #AotearoaNZ #miromiro #Petroica

Here's a map of all the miromiro (tomtits) I saw and heard in 2022 along my standard run routes through Ōtautahi-Christchurch. Miromiro are endemic insectivorous forest birds, and much more common deeper into Banks Peninsula. The only place along my standard city run routes that I've ever heard or seen them is in the original native forest of Sugarloaf. There's nothing like the real thing when it comes to native forest.
#EcologicalMonitoring #WildCounts #Birds #AotearoaNZ #miromiro #Petroica

Here's a map of all the miromiro (tomtits) I saw and heard in 2022 along my standard run routes through Ōtautahi-Christchurch. Miromiro are endemic insectivorous forest birds, and much more common deeper into Banks Peninsula. The only place along my standard city run routes that I've ever heard or seen them is in the original native forest of Sugarloaf. There's nothing like the real thing when it comes to native forest.
#EcologicalMonitoring #WildCounts #Birds #AotearoaNZ #miromiro #Petroica