After participating in the City Nature Challenge from April 30th to May 3rd and exploring the intervale, the Burlington Bike Path and Salmon Hole for the urban BioBlitz competition, I have learned a lot.
Using INaturalist I was able to document some exciting plants and wildlife. For example, I saw plants such as tulips and violets at the intervale.
These are violets that Rubenstein educator Judy Dow helped us identify at the Intervale on May 1st.
I also was able to capture some tulips on INaturalist when I was there with my friend Jamie.
On May 1st, also known as Spectacular Nature Day, my friend Jamie and I attended the City nature celebration at The Intervale where Walt greeted us with invasive treats and a fun experience. We had Japanese Knotweed Ice cream and other invasive species like pesto made from the invasive garlic mustard plant.
We also got to plant ostrich fern, remove invasive species and observe and document on many different species with the use of INaturalist for the Burlington-Winooski BioBlitz challenge.
This is an American Robin I saw on College St.
As you can see from this map most people in my NR-2 Lab stayed close to campus to document species.
Overall, this was a great experience and i learned a lot about biodiversity across the world by looking at some of the species found in places like Cape town, South Africa. It makes me really excited to travel and go bird watching in some of the worlds biodiversity hotspots.