5/3/21
On Saturday, the second day of the BioBlitz, I logged species while walking around the Waterfront and up to the UVM campus. On Sunday, I spent a few hours tromping around Centennial Woods, and documenting small plants, one mammal, one insect, and one fungus. My most memorable observations were Pinewood Gingertail and a Dunning’s Miner bee. I found the miner bee under a small log. It appeared to be resting or hiding, either way I haven’t watched a bee act like that before. After searching on iNaturalist I think it was a Dunning’s Miner bee, which makes sense because they are solitary bees. My other most memorable observation was a stump covered in Pinewood Gingertail mushrooms. They were some of the first fungi I have seen this year, and they looked beautiful spattering the dead tree in tightly packed clumps. I found using iNaturalist very helpful for identification, and overall simply enjoyable to use. Being able to identify plants allowed me to collect and eat some, which was very rewarding. There were times, however, when I wanted to simply observe, and taking a picture or looking something up on iNaturalist felt distracting. Especially when I was watching the miner bee because I was very curious about its behavior. Scrolling through the species list for the City Nature Challenge, I was surprised by how birds there were. I knew it would be mostly plants, but birds were a close second. I wonder if this is because they are easy to see or because birdwatching is a very established pastime. I was surprised by how few fungi there were. I was also incredibly impressed by Cape Town and the number of observations some of their participants were logging.
