The Murphys Point iNaturalist project is a great way to 'explore' the park and get a feel for what is being seen. It also adds to our knowledge of the park's flora and fauna and potentially helps us to identify critical habitat.

This note explains how to add your observations to this (and other) projects retrospectively. Unlike most of the newer projects on iNaturalist, the Murphys Point project is an 'older' model. The way it was originally set up means that observations have to be manually added either by the observer (quick and easy at the time or retrospectively) or by the project admin (must add each record individually). I have a series of screen shots to help you do this - if you wish to receive these, please message me (markread) through the website.

To retrospectively add observations follow these steps.

Step 1: Join the Murphys Point project if not already a member.
Step 2: Hover over your user icon (top right), and select 'edit observations'.
Step 3: On the next page, scroll to the bottom and choose to display/edit 200 observations per page (the maximum allowed). You may also want to select a different 'page' - for example if your observations occurred a few months ago.
Step 4: Go back to the top of the page and select 'batch edit'.
Step 5: Click 'select all', click on 'add to project', and, now that you're a member, the Murphys Point project will be available for selection.
Step 6: You will now be taken to a summary page that will notify you of the number added to the project and the number that have not.

Please note in step 5 that there is no need to individually select observations. The filtering process that kicks in once you try to add all 200 observations to the project will automatically select only those that fall within the park boundary.

To add observations to the project when you first upload, it is best to not mix uploads from multiple locations - i.e. upload sightings from Murphys Point separately from others. On the upload page 'select all', and then choose the Murphys Point project under the 'projects' tab.

Hope this helps!
Mark. (markread)

Seven folks joined me for the first public moth night of 2018 held, as usual, at the Rideau Comfort Station. The night ran from 8:30 to 10pm and with white and black lights set up moths, beetles, and fishflies were soon attracted to the station. Some of us saw the first Luna Moth of the season, whilst we all watched tiny mites crawling over the bodies of a scavenger beetle known as the Pustulated Carrion Beetle. Apparently these mites are predatory and help the beetles compete against other insect scavengers. We also saw click beetles, named for their unusual clicking sound made when trying to flip over and a dung beetle with its own little 'rhinoceros' horn. Although we did see several species of moth on the evening, the majority were trapped overnight. Once photographed, they were all released back to the wild. In all, we photographed 31 species of moth, beetle and fishfly - many others were too fast for us... We also went out onto the nearby field to find bats using a detector that converts their high frequency calls to one audible to humans. The detector also produces a visual representation of the call known as a spectrogram and with some fancy software tells us the species of bat. Apparently, the unseen visitors included Big Brown Bat and Hoary Bat.

All in all, it was a successful night and the results can be seen here: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?captive=any&d1=2018-05-26&d2=2018-05-27&place_id=any&project_id=4708&q=Rideau%20Comfort%20Station&subview=grid&verifiable=any.

Of the 31 species seen, Pustulated Carrion Beetle, Canadian Agonopterix, Striated Phaneta, and Bog Deltote were new for the park. Two of the three currently left unidentified are also likely to be new.

Three more moth nights are lined up for June on 9th, 16th and 23rd. Drop by anytime between 8:30 and 10, or pop back at 7am the next day to see what we find.