So long Pollinator Month
and so long male Diana's for the season (in some areas). Looks like the females are hanging out in the trees. Not many sightings right now.
Hello everyone:)
I just wanted to send you our ‘end of pollinator month’ update and say Thank-you for all of your help thus far. The Diana Project is in planning mode until Spring 2025 except for social media monitoring and interacting.
Here is a look at what WE accomplished this year so far! A heartfelt “Thank-you” to everyone who supported, encouraged, volunteered, input, critiqued, suggested or just wanted to help! We have accomplished allot in a year. Whew! As Randy Rowland told me, this is not a 5k, it is a marathon. So the next several months will be me organizing files, photos, etc., and sending out a new email list sign up option. Once I get organized we will start planning for Pollinator Month 2025.
Identification education and interp
- 1000 members on Facebook
103 instagram
If you haven’t seen the Facebook page it is worth a gander. There are some great pictures. It has been a good tool for teaching identification of The Diana there as well as used it for a springboard to enhance citizen science and AMN. The most popular post so far was by Jane Steinkraus who saw 4 males in West Fork; It has almost 3000 views! I hope to do more on instagram this coming year.
Citizen science
- 202 members on iNaturalist project page
- 357 total observations made to iNat in 2024 this far (compared to 129 total combined from 2008 to 2023)
Partnership impact
- 3161 visits to www.thedianaproject.com
- 753 of those were to the native plant list for The Diana which indicate our impact encouraging native plant use
- 351 visitors followed the link to “Learn more about Arkansas Master Naturalist”
- 111visits to Resource List that contains links to some of our partner entities and information (AGFC, Pollinator Project, ANHC)
Outreach and pollinator education
6 monthly meetings
2 training sessions
2 NIT sessions
3 radio interviews
38 presentations, meetings or interp tables
1 summer camp (ONSC)
Installed interp as Diana Patch installations (gardens installed with signs forthcoming)
- Calico Rock, Jill Easton project
- OHNC
- Fayetteville Public Library
- The Nature Conservancy, Logan Springs Preserve
Thank you each and everyone for supporting this project. It truly means the world to me.
Advocate for the voiceless,
Ms. Shawn Hunter
