Bird & Nature Outing: What is a Bioblitz? — July 22

​The 4th Sunday of the month Bird and Nature Outing at Lakeshore Nature Preserve featured What is a BioBlitz led by Paul Noeldner with help from Pat Becker, Doris Dubielzig, and Olympia Mathiaparanam with Friends of the Lakehore Nature Preserve.  About a dozen participants including a couple kids learned why scientists do BioBlitzes to get a holistic picture of an area's biodiversity and ecosystem health. Then everyone joined Bug, Critter, Plant and Habitat teams (anyone could help any of them) to help find and count as many different living things as they could along the Picnic Point path, from a Catbird singing in a Sumac bush to a Monarch on an Ironweed and a Leopard Frog jumping into a trailside rain garden full of bright red Cardinal Flowers in full bloom. 

Someone would shout New One! whenever a different new living thing was spotted, and the Recorders for each team would jot down the name of the species if known on a large tagboard, or a description or drawing of the color, number of legs, and similar details for the team Researchers to try to look up the species if not known. The Photogs in the group helped take pictures to document the findings. There were many interesting things to see and talk about and examine with binoculars or a magnifying hand held loupe. The group only got 500 feet down the Picnic Point path in about an hour, as might be expected. A scientific Bioblitz might go for 24 hours and involve lots of skilled researchers and specialists as well as opportunities for Citizen Scientists including families and kids to help spot things.

Back at the starting point the teams added up totals. The Critters team tied with the Bugs team with each having a total of 21 different species noted.  The Plants team found 37 different kinds of trees, flowers, moss, ferns and vines. The Habitat team found areas with different wind speed (0-5mph depending on cover), lumens of light reaching the ground (17,000 in open areas with cloudy sky and 3,000 below tree canopy, temperatures (75F in a pond, 70 in a lakeside glade, 85 on gravel path), sound levels (40db at a rain garden, with background calls of Yellowthroat and Catbirds), and a variety of landforms that together created an estimated 7 different ecosystem habitat niches that can be occupied by different plants and critters. The Kiosk area creek pool looked fairly clear but measured 368TDS (total dissolved solids) and the salinity was at the top of the handheld refraction meter scale. Everyone had a great time and learned about the fun and fascination of looking at a variety of ecosystem details by thinking Bioblitz! when taking a nature recreation and nature education walk. Thank you, Paul, for a great experience. Photos Paul Noeldner. ​

Birds observed
4 Mallard 
2 Sandhill Crane 
3 Ring-billed Gull 
2 Mourning Dove 
1 Ruby-throated Hummingbird 
1 Downy Woodpecker 
1 Northern Flicker 

1 Warbling Vireo 
1 Blue Jay 
3 American Crow 
2 Tree Swallow 
1 Black-capped Chickadee 
1 White-breasted Nuthatch 
3 American Robin 
2 Gray Catbird 

4 Cedar Waxwing 
1 Common Yellowthroat 
1 Song Sparrow 
3 Northern Cardinal 
5 Red-winged Blackbird 
1 House Finch 
3 American Goldfinch 
Number of Taxa: 22