Not unlike a game of “Where’s Waldo,” tomorrow marks a time to be on the lookout.
Get your portable phones and cool cameras ready for a four-day bioblitz style event! From April 30th to May 3rd, be on the lookout to log and identify all the plants and animals you can possibly find in the Palos Verdes area. I’m looking forward to taking part, filling up my phone with as many photos as I have room for. I hope to see everyone out there in the parks and on the beaches, pointing out nifty stuff and having a good time finding out the name of that strange plant over there.
These sorts of events happen every year to keep track of the plant and animal diversity in different areas. The entries will go into a system that can be accessed by anyone, so you can take a peek at what other people are noticing too! Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to take part least year. That just means I need to log even more plants this year!
CITY NATURE CHALLENGE
April 30 – May 3
The City Nature Challenge is an international effort for people to find and document plants and wildlife in cities across the globe. It is a bioblitz-style event designed to connect people and communities with nature… The event allows us to come together, unite, and collaborate with citizen and community scientists around the world, participating in whatever ways they can, to document the biodiversity of our planet.
PVPLC
For this particular challenge, they’ll be looking at observations made through the iNaturalist platform. If you haven’t had a chance to install this app yet, I’ll go ahead and peer pressure you into doing so. It’s an easy way to identify plants and animals by either: taking photos, recording sound, shooting a video… and then sharing it to a massive community of nature-lovers. The app will use your location and some data from your image (or sound) to offer suggestions about what the particular species might be. If you’re still not sure (or even if you are…), there’s going to be tens of thousands of other people looking through observations and providing answers.
I tend to use this app to find out the names of things that I come across in the wild. This weekend, I plan to identify as many different species of plants as I come across. Since those identifications will also be recorded as observations for this platform, it’s a learning experience and a way to help out.
And check out my page about Palos Verdes!
iNaturalist, much like this sort of event, is looking for observations of native and natural species. This isn’t a collection to determine who has the best garden; This is a way for all of us to get in touch with nature and each other by keeping an eye on what’s around us. If there’s an invasive plant species slowly spreading, this may help identify the species and locations. If the bees are going missing, this may help highlight how much and from where. I’m not certain where and how some of these observations might be used, but making them is fun enough on its own!
Thanks for stopping by! I hope you had a pleasant time checking out the plants. If you’re in the mood for more nature, please stay in touch!
Mindful Foliage 