April 27th, 2025
Hello!
The past few days, starting on Friday, April 25th, I’ve been posting species observations to iNaturalist (here’s the link to my page: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?user_id=brookeharrison)! I’ve been to many different places, including the parking lot next to Cohen, the Waterman green, Central Campus, Athletic Campus, Redstone, the bike path behind the gym, and Salmon Hole.
Here are some of my favorite observations so far:
^My first observation—common buckthorn found near Cohen!^
^Ginkgo biloba near Howe Library^
^A chipping sparrow on the Andrew Harris green^
^Possible corkscrew willow next to MAT^
^Woodpecker on a snag at the pine forest on Redstone^
^European starling next to bike path behind the gym^
So far I’ve found about 67 species of plants, animals, and various fungi.
I really enjoy using iNaturalist because it’s easy to upload pictures, and makes me feel like part of the community when people help me identify an observation and when I do the same for them! It’s also amazing to see the diversity of species that people encounter just in Burlington.
For example, here’s a map of all of the observations from the pine forest on Redstone (there’s so many of them!):
It’s also super cool to see the observations people have made around the world! It’s so interesting to see how common species differ in different landscapes, countries, and continents. I love seeing how diverse the organisms of the world are. I also found a lot of familiar species amongst the foreign ones. Here’s a screenshot of some of the different species people have found so far:
All this to say, I had a really good time doing this project! I think I’ll be using iNaturalist a lot during the summer for fun to learn more about the species of North Carolina 🙂
See you next time!