Over the course of the BioBlitz, I explored areas of campus near my dorm and the woods behind my close friend’s house just off the Belt Line by the Intervale.
I had a lot of fun using iNaturalist, I am consistently impressed by its ability to identify wildlife that I was not initially able to recognize. It was also fun to be outside during the beautiful weather and seeing spring come to life as the leaves and flowers came back.
I encountered many different species in my exploration, and I documented the three that I could get a good picture of. I was most excited to see another Eastern Newt as I had just learned about them for the first time in the Birds of VT Museum Lab. I was also pleasantly surprised to see a ring-billed gull. We have so many in my hometown on Cape Cod, and I remember being initially fascinated that they lived in Vermont too, as I thought they only lived on the coast.
I thought it was super interesting that so many cities in Texas were participating in the city nature challenge as I don’t often think of it as a hub of environmental studies or biodiversity. That really helped reframe my perspective. I’d be really interested to see the reports coming in from Monterrey and Trinidad as they had high numbers of species and their wildlife is so different from Vermont’s.
Above is the frog spawn and newt that I observed in the woods behind my friend’s house in a small — what I believed to be — vernal pool.
This is a picture of the paper birch I observed.