During the four-day urban BioBlitz, I explored the UVM campus and some of the neighborhoods near Redstone Campus, including South Prospect St, Summit St, Ledge Rd, Deforest Heights, and Iranistan Rd.
I had an easy experience using iNaturalist because I have previous experience cataloging species throughout the year for this blog. It was fairly easy to enter all my images and identifications. However, I did find it a little annoying to enter images during my walks, so I ended up snapping pictures while I was outside and logging the entries afterwards so that I could be as present as possible.
I encountered 21 species during my explorations:
I found it interesting to observe the biodiversity across the global participation and the shear amount of observations. There are currently 59,803 species and 2,197,239 observations! It is also really cool to view the top observed species. Currently, the top five species with the most observations are common dandelion, mallard, garlic mustard, western honey bee, and ground-ivy. It highlights how we are all connected by our natural surroundings. This event also fosters a community of nature lovers and it is very heartwarming to be a part of a community that cares about the protection of biodiversity and access to nature for everyone.