It’s hard to believe we just finished out last week of class, which means one last phenology blog post! For this assignment we participated in the City Nature Challenge. We were supposed to take pictures and observe as many species as possible over the weekend. It was kind of hard to find time to go out and do this because I was scheduled to work around 20 hours that weekend, but Monday afternoon a couple friends and I went around campus and to the woods to take pictures.
Here are a few of my favorite pictures of animals and plants I took:
We saw this chipping sparrow outside Jeffords hall on campus. iNaturalist could not identify the type of fern we saw in Centennial Woods but it looked super cool so we had to take a picture of it. Overall, iNaturalist was a very helpful tool in identifying plants and animals that I didn’t know. It was also interesting to see where everyone else was taking pictures on the map. In total I made 60 observations and identified 15 species.
Looking at the global challenge I found it interesting that multiple cities from Texas were in the top. When I think nature, I don’t exactly think Texas. Texas is quite big so it does make some sense. It was also very cool that Burlington was ahead of other more populous areas like Atlanta.
In conclusion, it was a great way to get outside and end the semester! Making this blog over the course of my freshman year was very fun and I plan on continuing to visit my phenology spot next year!