City Nature Challenge!
By: Amelia Weeden
5/6/2023
Although the weather this past weekend was less than ideal for participating in the Bioblitz, I still had a great time participating in it! Because of the rainy weather, my observations were mostly found around campus and the nearby surrounding areas. My first observation was an Eastern Cottontail, which I spotted on the green roof in University Heights South.
My experience using iNaturalist was a little tricky. While I had tried to upload my photos on the days they had been taken, only the observation of the Eastern Cottontail was uploaded. However, the rest of them ended up uploading and are now on iNaturalist. In total, I added 3 species that I observed: the Eastern Cottontail, Daffodils, and Yerba Buena.
My favorite part of this entire challenge was by far everyone’s excitement about it. From the TAs, to the students and Chris and Walt themselves, it was clear to me that participating in this was a well-loved tradition. It was very interesting to see that our small city of Burlington had more observations per capita than New York City, and more observations total than cities like Tokyo, Montreal, and London.
In all, participating in this challenge was super fun and I hope to do it again next year. I’m really going to miss posting on this blog and visiting my phenology spot, it was a very special and rewarding experience.