Our annual BioBlitz ran from April 22 through May 1.
A BioBlitz encourages participants to observe as many species over a set amount of time in a particular geographic area. For this event, we used the app iNaturalist, which enables observers to submit their data and observations to the special TTF project page. iNaturalist is a community-based science app that enables users submit pictures, sounds, or notes on a species, and a predictive feature in the app suggests what they may have seen. Other users, such as experts in the field, also suggest identifications.
Thank you to all of those who participated: over 200 different species were observed! This included a wide range of plants, animals, birds, and insects. The most observed species were red deadnettle, a common lawn plant, Japanese Cherry Tree, and the American robin. There were a total of 314 observations identified by over 50 people. One of our favorite observations from this year was an audio recording of an Eastern-Whip-Poor-Will heard at Awbury Arboretum! Some other exciting observations include a few red-breasted nuthatches, an Asiatic Wall Jumping Spider, and bloodroot.
TTF also participated in the City Nature Challenge, a global competition among cities to collect as many observations as possible between April 28 and May 1. The Philadelphia participating area included Philadelphia, Bucks, Montgomery, Delaware, Burlington, Gloucester, and Camden counties. Philadelphia recorded over 15,000 observations of over 2,000 species from almost 650 people! Interesting observations include Eastern Fence lizards, Polyphemus moths, and coyotes. You can view all of the observations from this event here.
Don’t forget you can check out our Tookany/Tacony-Frankford Watershed Wildlife project to learn about the living creatures in our watershed all year long.
Be part of our ongoing documentation of species across our watershed, particularly at our restoration sites. We have created specific project pages for these locations: McKinley Elementary School, Abington Junior High School, Rock Lane Park, Ethel Jordan Park, Abington Friends School, and Conklin Pool.
We know watershed restoration projects create great habitat. Take your friends, family, or classroom to one of our sites to explore and document the impact of our work!
Questions? Want to learn more: Contact Ryan@ttfwatershed.org.