Bioblitz Updates

The first-ever Jericho Bioblitz is off to a great start. Many thanks to the people who have made it over to our project site at Mobbs Farm and made observations of nature for science. As of this posting we have noted over 213 species.

For this weekend we have several times when volunteers from the Conservation Commission will be hanging out near the kiosk at the Fitzsimonds entrance to answer questions. Those times are Saturday 9/19 from 12-2pm & Sunday 9/20 from 10-12am and again from 1-3pm.

The cool thing about posting our observations to iNaturalist (iNaturalist.org) is that it doesn’t require you to know exactly what you are looking at – just a picture of it. You can let the iNaturalist program help you with IDs. For the best results try to get as close to the subject as possible, try to photograph the subject from a few angles (e.g. a mushroom ID is best with pictures of the top and the underside), and try to submit the entry to the most specific taxonomic level you are comfortable with – if you see a bug and you know it’s a bee, but don’t know what kind, choose a label such as “bee family” rather than a blank “question mark”, or if you don’t know if it’s a bee or a wasp then label it as “insect”.

Please check out our home page on the town website for more ways to engage! We have created a virtual place for you to submit nature poetry and artwork. There’s even a map where you can pin the places in Mobbs that you really love to visit. The Bioblitz runs through Saturday, Sept 26^th so there is still plenty of time to participate.