Good News! I finally got my iNaturalist account to work just in time to participate in the City Nature Challenge iNaturalist BioBlitz! The challenge couldn’t have taken place on a worse weekend in terms of weather, as it managed to be cold and rainy almost every day. Somehow, however, that didn’t stop me from spending far too many hours out in Centennial Woods, the Burlington Intervale, and down on the Lake Champlain waterfront documenting hundreds of different species. In total, I documented 225 different species and submitted 537 observations.
Primarily, I identified plant species, although I also managed to capture a few bird species and some mammals as well (primarily identified by their tracks). Thanks to the rain, there was also a lot of fungi to log (although I wouldn’t actually trust any of my fungus identifications if I were you).
I spend a lot of time wandering around Centennial woods and other natural areas anyway, but this BioBlitz encouraged me to do it even more. I spent more-or-less my entire weekend out in nature, identifying and documenting species, and it was a lot of fun (although I probably should’ve spent some time doing other homework…)! Looking at the results that came in from other cities, however, made me really wish that I had been documenting somewhere that wasn’t so phenologically behind (although I love Burlington, it still barely feels like spring here, especially last weekend).
Overall, however, this project was a lot of fun! Also my lab section, like, almost won? So that’s cool also 🙂
