During the 4 day urban BioBlitz, I chose to stay on campus and identify some of the species located here. UVM campus is a very urban environment with all of the buildings so close together. It is also a big section of Burlington. My observations are mostly from Redstone and Athletic Campus as there is a lot of species that reside there.
Using iNaturalist was very simple and not hard to get the hang of. I have been using it for the past semester for other assignments in NR1020. The only issue that I had was joining the project of the City Nature Challenge but as soon as the links were posted on Brightspace my issue was solved I found that it was very easy to mark my location and if I was confused on a species it offered suggestions. This program is a great tool and I would recommend it to anyone. It is super fun to just play around on and identify species around you.
Above is a map of campus, marked in red are the area where I identified a species. The 3 dots next to Wing/Davis/Wilks are a collection of hardwood trees. There are 2 red maples and what I believe to a mature basswood. The texture basswood bark and buds are an exact match for the species, but I was a little skeptical due to the shade of the bark. The marking right past Coolidge Hall, I determined to be an American Elm due to the flowers on the branches. To the back of Harris/Millis there was a mature Eastern White Pine easily identified due to the pine cone and needle shapes. Traveling back towards Redstone Campus, there is a collection of conifers called Redstone Pines. I identified another Eastern White Pine by there (shown below)
Being able to see that people are observing species all around the world right now made me feel like I was one part of a bigger picture. I found out that this happens at my neighborhood back in Massachusetts. I have never heard of this and its amazing how so many people can come together for this. I would never know that Honeysuckle is so prominent back home, but according to all of the observations on iNaturalist, it is.