Quarterly Bulletin of the Trinidad and Tobago Field Naturalists’ Club October – December 2020 Issue No: 4/2020 BACKYARD BIOBLITZ 2020 Saturday 21st - Sunday 22nd November SEARCHING FOR SILVER LININGS IN A PANDEMIC by Amy Deacon This year the Bioblitz organizing committee were decided to embrace the limitations and turn the 9th faced with a daunting task – planning an event in a T&T Bioblitz into a "Backyard" Bioblitz, that people pandemic with huge uncertainty about what would could take part in from the safety of their own be safe or permitted. However, rather than homes and gardens. postponing the event or risking cancellation, we (continued on page 3) Bronze Anole spotted on a backyard wall. Photo by Stephanie Warren-Gittens Page 2 THE FIELD NATURALIST Issue No. 4/2020 Inside This Issue Cover 1 Quarterly Bulletin of the Backyard Bioblitz 2020 Trinidad and Tobago Field Naturalists’ Club General Report - Amy Deacon October - December 2020 Editors Amphibian and Reptile Group Report Stephanie Warren-Gittens, Laura Baboolal 6 Associate Editor: Rupert Mends - Renoir Auguste Contributing Writers Amy Deacon, Linton Arneaud, Renoir Auguste, Mark Hulme, 8 Bird Group Report Laura Baboolal, Stephanie Warren-Gittens, Matt Kelly - Mark Hulme Photographers 10 Plant Group Report Judy Schwenk, Jeffrey Wong Sang, Anaadi Pooran, Stephanie Warren -Gittens, *amydeacon, ralytt, rainernd, zakwildlife, ryanmannete, - Linton Arneaud sabirali, erictobago, kyma, kyleedghill, kesterdass, saifudeen_muhammed, wesley117, iancorbinlocaltobago, markhulme, Fungus Group Report bellbird20, rgoordial, magintob, avinhardeo, hameeda, nigelaustin, 14 sterlingjames, figtree, rayannaa, nicholasmohammed, allandarwent, - Jeffrey Wong Sang shamz, rossi_nicholi_dookie, foresterkishan, aamir_rassul, davisgunn, bushmansparkles, milenchi, umarnobbee, yo_aid_dan, amargopual, jojada18, rashidali_7, kerrie_naranjit, 15 Mammal Group Report zahrah_mohammed, & davisgunn (*iNaturalist usernames have been given) - Laura Baboolal Design and Layout 17 Aquatic Group Report Eddison Baptiste - Stephanie Warren-Gittens Management Committee 2020 - 2021 19 Invertebrate Group Report President ……………... Renoir Auguste 761-9197 - Stephanie Warren-Gittens Vice-President ……….. Kris Sookdeo 647-5556 Backyard Bioblitz ‘Prize’ Winners 22 Treasurer…………….. Selwyn Gomes 624-8017 - Stephanie Warren-Gittens Secretary ………...…... Danielle Morong 768-7666 Assist-Secretary ……... Laura Baboolal 705-8716 23 Bioblitz History - Matt Kelly Committee members ... Nicholas Mohammed 723-6693 Dan Jaggernauth 659-2795 24 Notice from the Editors Stephanie Warren- 766-2681 Gittens Elizabeth Seebaran 710-6978 Contact us! The Trinidad and Tobago Field Naturalists’ Club Email: [email protected] is a non-profit, non-governmental organization Website: www.ttfnc.org Editor’s note : Facebook: www.facebook.com/ttfieldnaturalistsclub Many thanks to all who contributed and Instagram ttfnc assisted with articles and photographs. YouTube: Trinidad & Tobago Field Naturalists' Club - Disclaimer : YouTube The views expressed in this bulletin are those of the respective Twitter: @ttfnc authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinion and views of the Trinidad and Tobago Field Naturalists’ Club Postal: The Secretary, TTFNC, c/o P.O. Box 642, Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago Page 3 THE FIELD NATURALIST Issue No. 4/2020 Figure 1: Map of observations made during Bioblitz 2020. Source: iNaturalist (continued from Page 1) from the event in one place, so all participants had On the very rainy weekend of the 21st - 22nd of to do was install the app and take photos of all the November 2020, more than 200 people across T&T living things in their backyard - from kiskadees to ventured into their backyards and started uploading bachacs to chadon beni. photos. We embraced social media more than ever before Within a few hours there were hundreds of for the Backyard edition, with regular posts and observations accumulating on the project, and by tutorial videos in the weeks leading up to the event, the end of the 24hrs we had 6,708, representing an and a live-streamed welcome at the start and closing estimated 1,383 species – the highest total ever remarks at the end. Appearances on breakfast TV recorded in the 9 years of Bioblitz and exceeding all shows, print and online news and Caribbean Beat of our expectations. The virtual nature of the event magazine also helped to spread the word. was made possible thanks to the brilliant free app – iNaturalist. iNaturalist is used by people all over the It was fantastic to see the spread of observations world to help identify species and collect data on across the country– including both islands (Figure 1). their distribution. The ten most commonly-sighted species are shown By simply uploading a photo of a plant, bird, insect in Figure 2; the common crapaud (Rhinella marina) etc, the app’s algorithm gives you a pretty good was the most common garden sighting across the guess as to what type of organism you have found, country, closely followed by the introduced bronze then local and international experts chip in to help anole (Anolis aeneus) and the ubiquitous ruddy get it down to a species with more confidence. For ground dove (Columbina talpacoti). the T&T Backyard Bioblitz, we created a project page within iNaturalist to gather all observations More unusual sightings included several species of Page 4 THE FIELD NATURALIST Issue No. 4/2020 Figure 2. The ten most commonly observed and uploaded species during the 2020 Backyard Bioblitz. Compilation courtesy iNaturalist snake (including Oxybelis rutherfordi, the vine snake recently renamed after the T&T Bioblitz founder Mike Rutherford), a tufted capuchin monkey, and the endemic Trinidad stream frog. The species list also highlighted the abundance of invasive and exotic species in our backyards, such as the African giant snail and the lesser Antillean whistling frog – both of which appeared in the top 50 species seen. There is still some work to be done identifying less well-known species and coming up with final totals – Figure 3: Breakdown of observations by identification so the most interesting findings may be yet to status, and breakdown of species identified by taxa Source: come. iNaturalist. Even several weeks after the event, there are still around 50% of observations that need identifying to In addition to the usual naturalists and interested species level (Figure 3). On that note, we would like members of the public taking part, we were to extend a special thank you to the 405 iNaturalist delighted to see many schools incorporate the users who helped identify the species – in particular Bioblitz into their virtual lessons this year. Many Mike Rutherford and Matthew Cock, who both current and former UWI students also joined in. made substantial contributions from across the Atlantic. Mike alone helped identify more than 700 All participants received complimentary stickers on observations! request, thanks to a generous donation by Mr. Mitchel De Silva, and those meeting targets in Page 5 THE FIELD NATURALIST Issue No. 4/2020 certain categories received laminated field guides as Discovering the level of enthusiasm and prizes, courtesy of TTFNC (see page 22). participation among members of the public (not just club members) was a real silver lining of the While we hope to resume 'on location' Bioblitzes as pandemic; it suggests that lockdown has encouraged soon as it is safe to do so, the success of this event people to notice, appreciate and learn more about means this is unlikely to be the last Backyard Bioblitz the biodiversity right on their doorsteps, and that is we hold in T&T, even once restrictions ease. definitely a good thing! This photo of a tufted coquette taken during the Backyard Bioblitz was chosen as the iNaturalist observation of the day Photo by: ralytt This photo of a praying mantis was chosen via Facebook vote, as the cover of TTFNC’s 2020 Living World Journal Photo by: rossi_nicholi_dookie (Left) : Jeffrey Wong, Bioblitzing in his backyard with none other than a large fungus specimen. Photo by Jeffrey Wong Sang The 2020 Backyard Bioblitz was held by TTFNC with the support of the Department of Life Sciences at The University of the West Indies. TTFNC extends thanks to all of this year’s Bioblitzers and to our organizing committee for ensuring the event was a success! Backyard Bioblitz 2020 Committee: Amy Deacon, Mark Hulme, Ryan Mohammed, Stephanie Warren-Gittens, Linton Arneaud, Renoir Auguste, Laura Baboolal and Karishma Rampersad Page 6 THE FIELD NATURALIST Issue No. 4/2020 AMPHIBIAN AND REPTILE GROUP REPORT by Renoir Auguste Backyard Bioblitz’s Top 10 amphibians and reptiles. Compilation courtesy iNaturalist The 2020 Backyard Bioblitz produced a good observations of tree frog species, which is always turnout of amphibians and reptiles from across fantastic, as these frogs are typically brightly Trinidad and Tobago. Most of these species were coloured, and perhaps the negative perception by observed in people’s backyards, but also a few along locals on frogs would change if they saw more of the road or a nearby less urban area. these. Thanks to iNaturalist user “simmin” for the most amphibian observations with 8 comprising 2 In total, 14 species from 6 families of amphibians species, and to all the identifiers. were observed from 113 observations and 58 observers. It may come as no surprise that the most There were 35 species of reptiles which included observed amphibian was none other than the lizards, snakes, turtles,