During the BioBlitz, I explored a patch of woods behind my dorm (“Trinity Woods”), along East Ave, and Centennial Woods. I’ve always found iNaturalist to be a little counterintuitive–as I find that when I try to use it as an identification resource, there are not a lot of options that immediately appear as identification suggestions on species I’m unfamiliar with. I do understand that often identification suggestions are made after a posting–but I often forget to check-up on my past identifications. I also found it rather impossible to link my personal iNaturalist account to the NR 1020 city nature challenge project page on iNaturalist. Maybe I’m just lacking in basic app-literacy, but I have gotten stuck in numerous fruitless loops of re-setting my iNaturalist password to try to access the BioBlitz participation page. Other than my aforementioned frustrations, I generally enjoyed using the app to log my observations. I find that taking pictures and then uploading them to iNaturalist after my hike is very convenient.
For my observations, I ended up logging 7 different species that I found notable during my outings. Looking at the global city nature challenge page–the mallard duck being the most observed species was kind of shocking. I had expected a common weed, woody plant, or even fungi to be the most commonly observed species, not a North-American centric duck. I also enjoyed exploring the “Top observations” tab. It was pretty incredible to see an image of a striking beetle online and have it be traced to Italy, or Oceania.
Here are some pictures of my observations:
Here are a couple of my favorite entries:
See you next time!