The Buzz project: iNaturalist workshop success

Posted on 6 November, 2023 by Hadley Cole

The Buzz project: promoting pollinators of central Victoria, is a Connecting Country project funded by the North Central Catchment Management Authority (NCCMA) through the 2022 Victorian Landcare grants, that aims to celebrate and expand community knowledge on the smaller heroes of our local ecosystems, the insect pollinators.

The project has been running throughout 2023 and has included a presentation with local entomologist Dr Mark Hall covering ‘Native pollinators on your property: who, where and what they do?’ followed by a field trip that took a further look into ‘promoting native pollinators from property to landscape.’

Eager participants focussed on Euan’s presentation. Photo by Connecting Country.

The final event for the year was held in early October 2023 and was an iNaturalist workshop with local naturalist Euan Moore. This was the perfect opportunity for pollinator enthusiasts to learn how to record their data on the online iNaturalist platform.

Fifteen eager participants came along to the workshop armed with cameras and laptops for a four-hour workshop. Euan talked us through the basics of the iNaturalist platform such as how to create an account, how to upload an observation, and how to have your observations verified by experts from across the globe. We then investigated how to join iNaturalist projects where users have the opportunity to contribute to local projects such as the Castlemaine Field Naturalists Club project or the 2023 Great Southern Bioblitz: Castlemaine region, or nationwide projects such as Wild Pollinator Count Australia.

We took some time to wander around the Castlemaine Community House garden and gather images of pollinators to upload onto our iNaturalist accounts. Euan talked us through the important aspects to include in our photos to provide ample visual information for iNaturalists users to identify the species in question.

Participants searching for pollinators to photograph. Photo by Connecting Country.

Participants Frances and Bev chat with Euan the workshop presenter. Photo by Connecting Country.

Participants reported that they enjoyed a lovely day of learning and some were very eager to get out there and record their local sightings!

Connecting Country would like to give a huge thank you to Euan Moore for his time and dedication in teaching community members these wonderful iNaturalist skills.

This event was made possible due to funding through the 2022 Victorian Landcare Grants. We are grateful to our funders for making this interesting event possible.