I explored the Burlington Intervale and the waterfront during the City Nature Challenge during the four-day period from, April 30th through May 3rd. It was apparent that many other UVM students and citizens of Burlington and Winooksi were taking part with the challenge as well, especially because there was great spring weather for it.
My most memorable observation from the four-day urban BioBlitz was seeing the silver-maple-ostrich-fern-floodplain-forest flooded. It is amazing how much a location can change from an increase of rainfall and increased river flow as well. In my prior visit to the Intervale the river was about six feet below the riverbank, but this time the river was maybe three inches below the trail and riverbank. Seeing how fast a river can change over the course of a few days put into perspective why stream and river bank stabilization and a strong riparian buffer is to floodplain forests. My second most memorable observation from the BioBlitz was seeing a pileated woodpecker pecking at a tree, but then looking at the ground to see how much damage it had done to the tree, there was a pile of wood chips from the pecking at the base of the tree trunk. Although pecking holes in trees is a characteristic of any woodpecker, there can be lasting damage from the holes allowing trees to become infested with disease and pests.
iNaturalist is a great tool for anyone who wants to get out into nature and to be able to identify different species. I found the app very user friendly and it did a good job identifying species or giving possible options for what something may be. Another aspect of iNaturalist that I liked was that you could see what species people in Burlington and in the Winooski area were finding, but also all over the world people were documenting different species. This aspect of being able to see what species were being documented all over the world was incredibly interesting to me because it shows how much biodiversity there is around the world, and it shows how certain species thrive in certain regions of the world such as in Australia and New Zealand. Being able to see what species were documented globally was fascinating, but also seeing the different species that are found across the United States across the four-day City Nature Challenge was interesting as well.
