YESBioBlitz2024's Journal

YES BioBlitz 2024
The Yellow Point Ecological Society BioBlitz for 2024 is officially over and thank you to all our participants and identifiers for making it so much fun and so successful. So far we have 610 species of which 332 are research grade thanks to the support of the wider iNaturalist community helping ID the entries.

Our results compared to last three years (given in brackets) are as follows:
Observations 2085 (1847, 2004, 2289)
Species 610 (538, 556, 508)
Identifiers 191 (165, 178, 252)
Observers 38 (38, 47, 62)

The most observed species were
Scotch Broom (Cytisus scoparium) – sorry, I did combine broom busting with BioBlitzing
Pacific Banana Slug (Ariolimax columbianus)
Pacific Trillium (Trillium ovatum) was out in most places.
Salmonberry (Rubus spectabilis) was in bloom everywhere
Western Red Cedar (Thuja plicata) a definite favorite of the Stz’iminus Community school kids.

One focus this year was Cable Bay area and a wonderful record of the meadow plants was made by a team of bryologists and naturalists. Thanks to their work, some is in iNat thanks to @perki2, we have over 100 species in the fungi/lichen categories needing the help of experiences iNattters to check IDs. Please message any you know to help.

Thank you to our book prize winners - @ammlmt and @liamsteele, for the quantity of observations and identifications. The runners up were equally dedicated and captured some wonderful shots plants, owls, birds in flight, and under water life. They are @deevlish, @ebenezer_bugbee and @jenniferleighj. We have sets of Briony Penn’s nature cards to offer these naturalists. Our only school entry @woodhaven, will receive Briony Penn posters to supplement their collection.

Thank you also to those who helped ID species, @emilynel (for the early help), @rambryum, @frondsinhighplaces, @steveansell, @stewartwechsler, @sidalcea, @marcel_pepin, @lauren_bosch, @rharbo, @beespeaker, @shanemicroscope and the many others who contributed so much to identifying species and making this event successful.

See you same time, same place next year!

Please let me know the iNat user names of any school groups. I know Woodhaven is one. And if you are associated with and would like to work on involving more schools next year., please let me know. I know it needs a lot more up front preparation.

Thanks to everyone who is helping with identification. Today is out last day and next week I will check the results but it is easy to see we have more species and diversity than previous years - it looks great.

Hi all iNatters, recording is up to 8pm tonight and then for the rest of the week we can upload and get help from the wider iNat community to ID species. (And clean up my drop box etc)

The City Nature Challenge has a great FAQ list which I can access via the INat forum (anyone can join). If any of these are of interest I can also post the answers. Here is the link https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/frequently-asked-questions-city-nature-challenge/2337

And here are the topics
The app is not allowing me to add my observation to my city’s project.
How can I tell if my observations are in my city’s project?
What is the difference between wild and captive/cultivated?
Can I add photos of different organisms to one observation?
How do I add another photo to my observation?
Will observations I upload after May 1st count?
Should I agree with another user’s ID if I don’t know what it is?
Why is no one identifying my observations?
What if I take photos with my digital camera? Do I have to use iNaturalist’s mobile apps to make an observation?
Who identifies the observations? Can I help?
How do I upload my observations made on the app? Why are my observations not uploading?
Can I upload a video to iNaturalist?

I am now going to check out the answers with my coffee, before heading out into the sunshine.

Hi all iNatters, recording is up to 8pm tonight and then for the rest of the week we can upload and get help from the wider iNat community to ID species. (And clean up my drop box etc)

The City Nature Challenge has a great FAQ list which I can access via the INat forum (anyone can join). If any of these are of interest I can also post the answers. Here is the link https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/frequently-asked-questions-city-nature-challenge/2337

And here are the topics
The app is not allowing me to add my observation to my city’s project.
How can I tell if my observations are in my city’s project?
What is the difference between wild and captive/cultivated?
Can I add photos of different organisms to one observation?
How do I add another photo to my observation?
Will observations I upload after May 1st count?
Should I agree with another user’s ID if I don’t know what it is?
Why is no one identifying my observations?
What if I take photos with my digital camera? Do I have to use iNaturalist’s mobile apps to make an observation?
Who identifies the observations? Can I help?
How do I upload my observations made on the app? Why are my observations not uploading?
Can I upload a video to iNaturalist?

I am now going to check out the answers with my coffee, before heading out into the sunshine.

The dawn chorus is back with the robins and chickadees and the sky does not look so laden with rain. Yesterday's Cable Bay Trail walk was a great success. More than 30 people came and learned more about the amazing diversity and beauty of Cable Bay and enjoyed the veggie burgers at the trail head. People from all over the island and the world came were encouraged to upload their pictures into iNaturalist for the BioBlitz. Hopefully more people will get out to the other parks in the next 2 days.

I jumped the gun this morning to add the dawn chorus, then remembered it all starts tomorrow. So call it a practice run for using sound recordings from the shelter of my deck and using the Merlin app to ID the birds. There was no Horned owl this morning, the American robins were quiet but the Varied Thrush was quite vocal. Looks like we need our rain gear this weekend but it is not too wet after today. If the frogs enjoy this weather the record option may be quite useful! The Canadian Wildlife Federation Webinars were all great.
Watch them here when you are not out recording https://cwf-fcf.org/en/resources/downloads/webinars/?src=menu

Hi all, we have a public walk on the Saturday in Cable Bay area and will be joined by some botanists, who know their species but are not so familiar with using iNaturalist. I know some of you are brilliant with iNaturalist - please let me know if you would like to help on the walk, before the walk and after the walk with iNaturalist issues and get to meet these talented botanists.

Cable Bay area is under development threat and has such special meadows and wetlands - join the walk on the Saturday and learn what is there.

Yellow Point Park is being considered as a KBA - a Key Biodiversity Area for the Macoun’s Meadowfoam, Limnanthes macounii.. What else exists in this special park - aside from the glorious camas meadows?

We are continuing to remove invasives in Holland Creek Park and Hemer Park and could use help tracking where they are (and the return of the native plants where the ivy has been removed). It really helps to take an identifiable picture (good close up shot), plus a landscape picture ,and add notes on the extent of the invasives.

Yay, we got an ad in the April Take 5 and today I sent out emails to the past participants. One post on facebook and more to follow. Posters to be distributed around town and at the Volunteer Fair