Journal archives for May 2016

16 May, 2016

BioBlitz, BioBlitz, BioBlitz! (also, come identify with us on Friday night!)

It's coming!!! I just unsubscribed from "all observations from the District of Columbia" so that my daily updates email isn't insanely long.

So many people have been working hard on this event in DC (@maryeford, @jbrown, @alliepetersen, @kellycoy to name just a few of the people I interact with the most!) and many more working on not only this BioBlitz but also supporting other events across the country (@loarie, @tiwane, @forester93, @geobudde, @biogeek5, @alexandra6). Very excited to have some local iNaturalists coming out for BioBlitz, including @treegrow, @calopteryx, and SO MANY OTHERS, especially all of the new folks recruited and trained by @alliepetersen! Also excited to have some people coming in from out of town like @reallifeecology and @kevinfitzpatrick.

We really want to get more people involved in identifications and welcoming people to the community too, so we're going to gather for a couple of hours on Friday evening with laptops to add identifications/comments/faves to BioBlitz observations. Anyone is welcome! @loarie will be there.

Friday evening 5-7 PM
Bertucci's
2000 Pennsylvania Ave NW
Washington DC 20006

We've scheduled this not far from the Biodiversity Festival at Constitution Gardens during a bit of a lull but there will be some great evening programming (and beer!) (with @dnlee5!) starting at 7 pm so we won't stay late at Bertucci's (at least I won't).

If you'll be watching the BioBlitz from afar, we'd love your help with identifications, comments, and faves. Keep an eye on the NPS Servicewide project, especially on Friday and Saturday.

Happy iNaturalisting, everyone, BioBlitz or not!

Posted on 16 May, 2016 02:06 by carrieseltzer carrieseltzer | 5 comments | Leave a comment

29 May, 2016

BioBlitz encore!

Thank you to everyone who turned out and helped at the DC BioBlitz last weekend! I was overwhelmingly tied up making sure that everyone else ended up where they needed to be, but I did have a chance to help @rachelstephenson and @figgtails make some of their first iNaturalist observations on Saturday afternoon at Constitution Gardens when one of our experts was unable to make it. There was so much to look at with our Easy Macros that we spent the whole time in one small patch of lawn!

Since I didn’t get to do much exploring on my own during the event, we had a BioBlitz encore on Sunday at Dyke Marsh with @loarie, @calopteryx, @reallifeecology, and some young naturalists! We also ran into @lynnparsons and some other BioBlitzers. My daughter said the best part was throwing rocks in the water with @reallifeecology’s son Cypress but I loved the huge crayfish!

It was especially great to go out with out-of-town supernaturalists @loarie and @reallifeecology. Scott had to head back to California but Jonathan and his family along with Matthew O’Donnell came back to hang out and have dinner at my place (and make a few more observations in my yard).

Posted on 29 May, 2016 05:02 by carrieseltzer carrieseltzer | 22 observations | 1 comment | Leave a comment

31 May, 2016

Fort DuPont Park needs more iNaturalist love

Fort DuPont is the second-largest wooded park in DC (Rock Creek Park is biggest). It has some great habitat, but it’s not on most people’s radar. There weren’t any BioBlitz activities there (it’s part of National Capital Parks East which had activities in both Kenilworth Aquatic Gardens and Piscataway Park), so I thought it could use a little post-BioBlitz iNaturalist love. I’ve only been there once before and didn’t make it very far. There were just a handful of iNaturalist observations from the park (@ahay, @athryn, and @steveramanand), so @reallifeecology (Jonathan Carpenter) and I met up on Friday to help remedy that!

Noteworthy observations:
-3 kinds of slime mold.
-Several kinds of moss with sporophytes.
-Mountain laurel in bloom.
-Recently fallen hemlock. It was the only one we saw and it was unclear why it fell. We suspected a possible lightning strike, but even that seems strange.
-Massive white oak. @reallifeecology got a photo with me in it for scale.
-The tick my husband pulled off later that night.

For anyone interested in adding more to the NPS Servicewide 2016 BioBlitz project (and therefore moving up on the leaderboard), this is NPS land! Come make some observations! You can easily see where we explored (link to map) so I encourage others in the area to check out other parts of the park as well!

Posted on 31 May, 2016 05:58 by carrieseltzer carrieseltzer | 50 observations | 3 comments | Leave a comment

Headed out west for Grand Circle Trip through NV, AZ, and UT!

My family (me, husband, daughter, and parents) is flying to Las Vegas, renting an RV, and then going to Lake Mead, the Grand Canyon, Canyonlands, Arches, Bryce Canyon, Zion, and Valley of Fire. If any iNaturalists out that way want to meet up, message me with your email address and I can share our itinerary. We leave TODAY—I'm at the airport now!

I’m super excited about adding tons of observations on this trip, especially now that the new uploader makes it easier to add a lot at once. Also, I’m pretty clueless about western ecosystems, so I anticipate needing a lot of ID help.

This is a much-anticipated vacation after much hard work for BioBlitz. I’m incredibly excited about exploring this new-to-me part of the U.S.!

Posted on 31 May, 2016 10:00 by carrieseltzer carrieseltzer | 6 comments | Leave a comment