City Nature Challenge 2025!
On the first day of the BioBlitz, Friday, I biked up the Island Line Trail from the ECHO Center to the Winooski River Iron Bridge up by Derway Island. I stopped so many times I think the round trip actually took me about 4 hours.
I really like using iNaturalist especially when there is a certain plant I’m having trouble identifying. Sometimes even iNaturalist doesn’t know, but I like seeing the options it gives me and using my best judgement based on those. I found it really easy to keep track of my observations even when I didn’t have service since you have the option to add pictures afterwards and keep the correct GPS location.
I encountered many bird species but was able to capture 6 on camera. The most frustrating part about using iNaturalist is needing to get a reasonably good picture of wildlife that doesn’t like you.
My bird photography is questionable, but they are in the pictures I promise. I actually passed a man on the bike path who told me to look out for the bald eagles, but I unfortunately did not see any after stopping and watching for about 10 minutes. I encountered the most birds when I stopped to walk around the cemetery, but the only bird that enjoyed my presence was the Blue Jay.
I also encountered plenty of Eastern Gray Squirrels.
I saw many trees in their early spring stages, such as the Common Serviceberry and Box Elder beginning to bloom. The non-native Golden-Bell has already bloomed in someone’s front yard.
Just now, April 27, I checked the live results of the City Nature Challenge. I was surprised to see San Antonio holding a strong lead! Cape Town has fallen behind this year. I loved seeing how many cities were participating globally, and was sad to see my city was not participating.