היומן של bkatzenberg

Very excited to hit my 2000 observation mark this morning (and 2446 identifications). It took a whle for me to become an active part of the community and to understand how things work. Getting identifications and comments from other people makes things more fun. I'll be teaching some high school kids to use iNaturalist this week in preparation for the upcoming City Nature Challenge.

Can't wait to get going on the City Nature Challenge in Lexington next weekend. I gave some one-on-one training to one interested person in Willard's Woods today. Among the plants we saw were a lot of lovely natives: Canadian mayflower, high and low bush blueberries, partridge berry, striped winterberry, Pennsylvania sedge, club mosses, and laurels. Also a gorgeous marsh marigold in bloom.

Day 1--309 observations , 136 species, 20 observers--not bad! The first day was a weekday, and I believe this nice turnout bodes well for the rest of the event. Although the lion's share were from the plant kingdom, people also saw birds, fungi, a garter snake, and signs of beaver. For insect lovers, there is a patch of lowbush blueberries in bloom near the top of Juniper Hill that are getting visited by a riot of pollinators including a brilliantly blue moth I could only identify as from the genus of Holartic Azures. We expect a mostly sunny day with a lot less wind today so I expect a good haul of new observations and species. A highlight for me yesterday was one of our small group in Whipple Hill spotted a very large group of marsh marigolds in bloom.