Last weekend was the global city nature challenge and the global BioBlitz! Walt and Chris instituted a competition and so I went a little bit crazy. I recorded over 200 observations and130 species as an individual. I went all over Burlington, and even down to Winooski briefly. Most of my observations were here on campus, and a lot of them were in the Intervale as well. Here’s a map of all of my observations and where I saw them:
The coolest species that I saw was a cooper’s hawk. On the very first day, it was just there, on the howe library window as I was walking to class. I had a few more really cool observations like that (I know they are called common ravens, but seriously dude, those things are massive, really cool birds,) but mostly what I made official observations of were just plants that most people would call weeds. Honestly, I think the best part about the BioBlitz was that it reminded me to notice. There was so much stuff that I was just going by without really thinking about it, but feeling like I had to notice and really pay attention put me back in my body, which was really nice. I also loved listening to the birds and I really feel like I’m better at observation in general now, because I did so much of it. Overall, I think that this was a rewarding experience, but next year, I think I’m going to chill out a little bit, because I couldn’t walk on Saturday night. Enjoy some of the photos that I took:
