Overall, I had an amazing experience with the City Nature Celebration. I did not record as many species as I thought I would going into it, but I used the multi-day celebration as a way to especially appreciate nature and to just be more aware of my surroundings. Whenever I would walk around campus or through town I would be trying to observe the trees and birds around me, but my main place of observation and recording was at the Intervale. I went to the event there being hosted by Burlington Wildways. I ended up staying there for about four and a half hours walking around, observing the nature and natural processes around me. I love using iNaturalist to record species I find, as it has been valuable to my learning about the natural world. However, I have a strong dislike in using it a lot when I am out and about in nature because it means I have to be on my phone when I really just want to be taking it all in free of distraction. This is a battle I will continue to struggle with. I found it interesting to look at the cities, such as Cape Town, which had the most recorded observations. I am just super curious why certain cities did better than others. What were they doing that others weren’t? Does this just mean they have a more naturally curious population? Or better organizational skills to rally their people to work together? I have no idea, I just had fun thinking about these things. Now, here are some photos from my time at the Intervale.
