Hey there! These past few days I had the amazing opportunity of being able to participate in the Burlington Bio Blitz (Alliteration Much?)
In this 4-day-long nature identification extravaganza, I was challenged with going out into the natural world around me and taking photos of whichever species that I came across for posting on iNaturalist.
In my adventures, I decided to travel to Shelburne Pond, a 450-acre-large pond 20 minutes South of campus. Since the park at Shelburne Pond is owned and managed by UVM, I thought it was the perfect place to see nature in action.
So with my fishing rods and a few friends, we set off to Shelburne Pond! While we were there, we saw a few interesting species!
Here’s a quick map of Shelburne Pond for context!
First, we saw this flower, which a few people on iNaturalist identified as a sharp-lobed hepatica. This plant is related to buttercups and is found throughout the temperate woodlands of North America.
This species is some sort of shorebird. The Merlin app has identified it to be a Caspian Tern, which is a shore bird that lives on 5 continents! In Vermont, this species typically is just a passer and is not known to breed here.
This is some sort of raptor. The Merlin app also helped me identify this one as an Osprey! Ospreys are known to be migratory in Vermont and love large bodies of water!
While we were changing fishing spots, we were spooked by this little Garter snake! He was equally spooked by us, so I had to quickly grab this photo before he got away! Garter snakes eat all sorts of small critters including mice, birds, eggs, and insects.
After fishing in a spot for over an hour, I noticed this water snake. This creeped us out a lot as we were sitting right next to it for so long without even seeing him! Luckily for us, he was really chill and barely cared that we were there. We did check if he was alive (by poking him with a stick) to which he responded by giving us the very photogenic pose that you can see above.
My friends say they saw this very odd species of fish… I had never seen it before so It could very well be a hoax… Please let me know what your thoughts are. (The water was cold but the top of my rod fell into the water)
Overall, I found that iNaturalist was a very nice app for naturalist-inclined people to document species in their places!
This Summer, I’m planning to use this app around my house to document all the cool species I find! I’m glad that I now have this resource and community to help me identify cool critters in nature!
