City Nature Challenge!
Unfortunately, the weather has not been on our side here in Burlington for going out and exploring during this year’s City Nature Challenge. Fortunately, I did not care.
I spent the better half of Saturday outside, exploring some of Burlington’s natural areas in the rain. I learned that my jacket is not, in fact, waterproof and that I love solo hiking!
I left my room at around 2:30 pm, equipped with my camera and Merlin bird ID app, and didn’t get back until 6:30 pm–give or take the 15 minutes I spent questioning my choices trying to dry myself off in a bathroom in the middle of campus. I walked just about 5 miles in total.
First, a quick stop at the bird feeder in between Jeffords and the Police Station!
While most of the birds were in the brush behind the feeder, I also saw some black-capped chickadees.
Centennial Woods
First stop: Centennial Woods! (Not counting the 15 minutes I stopped at the bird feeder on the side of the road)
I took a Merlin recording as I walked down the start of the trail. It picked up Dark-eyed Junco, Northern Cardinal, Merlin, Downy Woodpecker and Northern House Wren calls/songs.
I stopped at the bird feeder by the stream for a while and set up Merlin again.
After recording for around 20 minutes near the bird feeder and open area, the app picked up:
- American Goldfinch
- American Robin
- Baltimore Oriole
- Black-capped Chickadee
- Broad-winged Hawk
- Brown Creeper
- Brown-headed Cowbird
- Downy Woodpecker
- Golden-crowned Kinglet
- Hermit Thrush
- Northern Cardinal
- Pine Warbler
- Ruffed Grouse
- Song Sparrow
- Tufted Titmouse
- Song Sparrow
After spending a good chunk of time around the stream, I turned around to start to head through Centennial in the direction of Winooski. Around this time was when it started to rain a good amount. I took tons of pictures of fiddleheads as I continued to walk.
I got to the edge of the forest and had to cross this oddly unsecure fence through Centennial Field to get to the street.
The Walk to Salmon Hole
I got rerouted since AllTrails lied to me and tried to get me to walk through a wall, so I added some extra time onto the journey. Once I got onto Colchester Ave it was smooth sailing.
I heard a European Starling on the walk, which I had never heard before. Saw some squirrels, some grass lawns and bedstraw lining the bricks by the cemetery.
Salmon Hole
I had never been here before, only seen pictures, so I really didn’t know what to expect.
Off the bat, I felt a little more uneasy being alone, likely because I was further off campus and it was getting a bit darker out. It also smells very strongly of fish.
I didn’t sit at Salmon Hole itself given it was sprinkling and getting colder. I saw that there was a “River walk to Salmon Hole” trail, so I decided to give that a shot to get closer back to campus. The walk there was quite steep downhill and I did not want to take that route back up to campus.
I’m guessing the River Walk is gorgeous when it’s nicer out, it was quite spooky when I visited.
The soil was quite sandy and the area was mostly taken over by invasive plants. There were a multitude of culverts draining rusty or otherwise off-colored water into the river. There was also a large amount of garbage and litter scattered about the trail.
There were not many birds I could hear, although I did see geese and another large, scary looking bird species in hanging out on small islands in the river.
By the time I got to this point in the hike, I was tired, spooked out and ready to be back to campus. The trail dumped me out on Intervale Road, which is almost directly north of central campus.
The walk back took YEARS off my life. It down poured so hard every square inch of my being was drenched.
iNaturalist Observations
Here comes the fun part….(some of) my iNaturalist observations! Click on any of the photos to be brought to the observation on my page 🙂
Centennial:
Salmon Hole:
All photos with captions should link to an iNaturalist observation page! (minus the image of the two goldfinches)
Global BioBlitz
I looked at the Global City Nature Challenge project on iNaturalist and find it super interesting that the Common Dandelion is the most observed species! I guess I assumed they were more of a regional thing but it appears they’ve been observed globally, in most regions except the most arid, hot or cold biomes. Who would have guessed!
The overall stats show around 40% of observations are plants, which makes sense, as they are stationary (for the most part) and all around us! The second highest species category, however, is insects! In my whole adventure this weekend, I wasn’t able to get a picture of a single bug, so I find that fascinating.
Looking at the current global live results, Washington DC is pretty high in the ranks. Compared to many of the cities up on that list, I didn’t think Washington DC would be 8th! I find it so cool to think all of these people are out observing the nature in their urban areas. There are almost 100,000 people participating in this, and considering how many observations just the top three cities have, I can’t image how many there truly are. This is such a lovely thing to participate in and I can’t wait for next year!