Sporting ornithology tournament

Good afternoon, bird watchers of Central Russia!

We invite you to take part in the tournament in sports ornithology “Middle lane”.

Regulations on the interregional tournament in sports ornithology “Middle lane”

Tournament organizer

Internet community “Birds of the city of Kursk” with the support of the all-Russian public organization “Russian Bird Conservation Union”.

The main goals of the tournament

1) Collection of information on the occurrence of birds in the regions of the middle zone of the European part of Russia;
2) Attracting the attention of observers to the least explored areas;
3) The development of the movement of amateur ornithologists in Russia.

Main site of the competition

iNaturalist.org

Tournament dates

May 1–10, 2022

Collection of observations – May 1–3
Loading Observations – May 1–5
Observation Identification – May 1–7
Results Processing – May 8–9
Summing up – May 10.

Geography of the tournament

Regions of central Russia: Tver, Yaroslavl, Ivanovo, Kostroma, Smolensk, Kaluga, Moscow, Vladimir, Nizhny Novgorod, Bryansk, Oryol, Tula, Ryazan, Penza, Kursk, Belgorod, Lipetsk, Voronezh, Tambov regions, the Republic of Mordovia, Chuvashia, as well as the right bank of the Volga in the Ulyanovsk, Samara, Saratov regions, the Volga right bank of the Republic of Tatarstan. Region names are given in accordance with the classical floristic summary by P.F. Mayevsky “Flora of the middle zone of the European part of Russia”.

Participation form

The tournament is held in a team format. The team of participants includes from 1 to 3 observers, users of the iNaturalist platform. The preferred number of team members is 3. The team can be represented by members from different cities and regions. Collective iNaturalist accounts are not eligible to participate in the tournament. At the same time, personal results are taken into account in all nominations of the tournament.

Tournament nominations

1) "Middle band" (team/personal) - the largest number of noted bird species.
The target, which is also the main project of the tournament: https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/srednyaya-polosa-2022-obschiy-zachet
2) "Red Book" (team/personal) - the largest number of recorded bird species from the Red Book of Russia.
Target project: https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/srednyaya-polosa-2022-krasnaya-kniga
3) "White spots" (team/personal) - the largest number of bird species recorded in the unstudied areas of iNaturalist (zones of 20x20 km in which there are no bird sightings).

Target project: https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/srednyaya-polosa-2022-belye-pyatna
Summing up in nominations 1-3 will be carried out on the basis of the analysis of data upload from the relevant projects. If the number of counted species is equal, the following rules will apply: for team standings, the team with the greater sum of counted species from each participant wins; for the individual standings - the participant with the most observations wins.

4) "Best observation" (personal) - the most interesting faunistic observation. Determined by tournament organizers based on iNaturalist statistics on the rarity (frequency of occurrence) of specific species. In disputable situations, the decision is made taking into account the expert opinion of ornithologists.
5) "Best Photo" (individual) - nomination for the Audience Choice Award. Until May 5, observers offer the most artistic / interesting photos of birds taken as part of the tournament. 10 photos selected by the organizers of the tournament will be admitted to the audience voting. One observer can submit no more than 1 photo to participate in the nomination.

Registration

Participants who wish to form and lead a team offer themselves to other participants as a captain and recruit a line-up. To form teams, you can use, in particular, a special discussion on VK (https://vk.com/topic-161928724_48567667). If the team has one member, he is also the captain. For registration, the captain fills out a team application using the Google form https://forms.gle/FEsx952hqNgjGfR97.
If the google form did not work, use the alternative Yandex form https://forms.yandex.ru/u/6266cf12ef681f170156eb03/.
In the application, the captain indicates the name of the team, the names of the participants (to be used in the preparation of diplomas and certificates), their nicknames on the iNaturalist platform, links to personal pages in VK, if available, as well as the cities that the participants represent.

Observation Requirements

Observations of research-level birds made within the framework of the geography of the tournament in the period from May 1 to May 3 inclusive are considered credit.

Leading bird experts from the Russian-speaking iNaturalist (Andrey Bazdyrev @andrewbazdyrev, Mikhail Anuryev @michail_anurev03, Jan Adamson @yan_adamson) will take part in confirming and determining the observations of the tournament.

Summarizing

The winners and prize-winners of all nominations, who took the first 3 places in the team / individual competition, will receive the corresponding diplomas. All other teams can receive electronic Certificates indicating the names of team members (optional).

News support for the tournament is carried out on the page of the Internet community VK “Birds of the City of Kursk” - https://vk.com/birdskursk, as well as in the magazine of the main project “Middle Lane” on the iNaturalist platform - https://www.inaturalist.org/ projects/srednyaya-polosa-2022-obschiy-zachet.
Questions about participation in the tournament, as well as suggestions for finding teammates can be asked in a special VK discussion - https://vk.com/topic-161928724_48567667, or directly to the tournament organizers:
Evgeny Sklyar (VK https://vk.com/ev_sklyar, iNat. @ev_sklyar)
Mikhail Anuryev (VK https://vk.com/id396415914, iNat. @michail_anurev03)
Pavel Kudrin (VK https://vk.com/id475427970, iNat. @pvk)

Source: iNaturalist