Can we make it to 200 observations at Hovland Woods SNA and Spring Beauty Northern Hardwoods SNA? This BioBlitz is ending in two days so don't forget to make any last minute observations!

Дорогие друзья! Dear all! Спасибо всем, кто остаётся на связи! Небольшая напоминалка: после табличек в конце поста есть дайджест основных событий. Не забудьте с ним ознакомиться. На счётчике сегодня новая круглая отсечка - 1 900 000 наблюдений

Hi Team,
Excited to be on this journey with you.

(writing in progress)

Land tortoises are completely absent from Australia, despite occurring in Eurasia, Africa, and the Americas.

The ‘obvious’ reason for the lack of land tortoises in Australia and New Guinea is ‘Wallace’s Line’ = the sea barrier separating Australia and New Guinea from southeast Asia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wallace_Line).
 
This is how I would refute this notion, ste...

A few weeks ago, we spent some time at Cotwall End nature reserve surveying the many different kinds of wildlife that take sanctuary there. Over just the two days we managed to survey over 200 flora and fauna, and we have so far found over 100 species!

Thank you to everyone that took part in the Bioblitz to help us explore Cotwall End and its wide range of habitats. We definitely learnt more about what signs of wildlife to look out for during Spring, and found some species that w...

Hallo zusammen,
die Feriensaison beginnt, die Hitze ist da und viele von euch werden in Urlaub fahren.

Dennoch möchte ich gerne die monatlichen Treffen fortsetzen, und halte den kühlen Wald für ein geeignetes Ziel.
Zudem möchte ich diesen Termin auch nutzen, um Fragen zur Verwendung und Funktionalität von iNaturalist zu beantworten. Daher folgende Idee:

Das Treffen soll stattfinden am Freitag, 22. Juli in Kalksburg, auf dem B.R.O.T-Gelände neben dem Kollegium...

(writing in progress)

Australia is the only vegetated continent lacking any indigenous ungulate, and any herbivore larger than kangaroos.

One possible interpretation is that the Australian vegetation is capable of supporting mammalian herbivores, but herbivorous niches have been emptied by relatively recent extinctions plus isolation from sources of recruitment of new herbivorous taxa. The extinctions took place long before the arrival of Europeans and domestic livestock...

It seems to be the time of year to be stung by ants. A lot of people I know have gotten stung this week. I got stung this morning while looking for bees, probably by one of the red harvesters that are ubiquitous where I live.

Meanwhile in the hills, I've noticed quite a variety of ants in the evenings. I've been trying to make a point of taking pictures of some of them, even though I'm not great at identifying ants. I've been out most weekday evenings the past couple weeks, sayin...

I decided to visit Newton where I selected Hemlock Gorge and Echo Bridge to observe. Immediately when I got there, the sun was out and it was partly cloudy. The temperature was at 78 degrees Fahrenheit. We approached the gorge by walking down narrow and steep dirt paths that lead to the bridge. Around it was partially dense forest with little animal species found with eye sight. Although I found multiple bird species, I was unable to identify them. I further investigated the forest by ta...

This species has not been seen on the SC since 2009 it appears. On June 27th at the Gray-Chapman Cross-over bridge 2, maybe 3, individuals were photographed and subsequently identified by others. This location is about 5km from the Irgens Creek area where it had been previously found in 2009.

Since finding that is completely natural is very hard in the city, I went to a relatively large park. Although there are man made items like playgrounds there is also a section where there there are extremely tall trees that provide the wildlife I was looking for. Luckily today there was bit of wind here in the sitting instead of the usually extremely humid and hot day. When looking for plants, I was most attracted to the plants that had a bit more color and incorporated these many of th...

Today was a beautiful, but very hot, day in the Boston area. I drove down to Dedham to walk around the large reserve of Noanet Woodlands. There were lots of interesting things to see along this walk. I saw people walking their dogs, some birds, and a wide variety of plant species!
I also was able to think of things with perhaps an "ecological" perspective. I thought about how the food chain might be working in this forest, which plants or species would be considered primary producer...

I decided to enjoy this beautiful and sunny day by going to the Providence River Walk Park. I went after 5 PM when the sun was still out but the temperature was a nice 76 degrees Fahrenheit. I entered the park from its northernmost part and began walking down. My first observation was of some berries I saw on a tree. At first, I saw some that were purple, but as I went around the tree, I saw some that were a very bright red color. I wondered what caused some of the berries to be riper th...

My sister and I decided to go on Warner trail in Sharon, Massachusetts. The weather was almost unbearably hot, with it being 89 degrees Fahrenheit. It probably didn't help that we decided to go around 3:00 in the afternoon. It was very sunny and no clouds were to be seen at all. We walked throughout the trail for an hour and noticed several things that might relate to the topic of ecology we're learning about. First, we noticed a lot of spiderwebs throughout the trail. The webs stretched...

Today I went on a walk around Chestnut Hill Reservoir, and it is my first time actually taking a walk there. I went there around 7pm, and the weather was good because it was evening so it wasn't too hot. I saw many plants during my walk. I was expected to see many animals on the pond like geese and swans, but there was only a few on the lake. My first observation is this little white flower named Horseradish. As you can see in my picture, there was one stem growing really tall, compared ...

Today I walked along a salt marsh area surrounding the beach in Barnstable, Cape Cod! It was a very warm day, about 80 degrees with a very strong sun and clear skies. There were a variety of plants vastly different than those on my previous Nature Walk. Some of these were the reeds, Junipers, and Virgin Creepers. While in Hammond Pond the conifer trees reached high heights, here most of the plants were shorter vascular plants with a few short trees. There were some flowering plants and s...

My coworker and I decided to go for a 30 minute or so walk outside because we had been inside all day and we hadn't had the chance to go outside so I saw this as the perfect opportunity for my nature walk assignment, since I am at work pretty much from the moment I leave my house around 8:30 to 9 am and I don't get home until 8:30 or 9 pm, it is hard to scope out natural areas near where I am because so much of my day is spent at work. The weather was gorgeous and sunny, and we could fee...

Today I walked for 30 minutes around a wooded area. There were large areas of grass as well as different types of trees. Along with these two majority items I had a few other discoveries. Primarily, I found what I believe to be an oak tree (vascular plant) as well as an oak tree leaf that appears to have been chomped on by a small herbivore. I attached the pictures of both the oak tree and the leaves I found on the ground. I also found another mushroom, or fungi, on my walk like I did la...

Today I went on a very nice walk around Longfellow Pond (without my dog this time), I had never been around the pond before despite it being very close to my normal dog walking route of Centennial, and I was very surprised by how different the biodiversity seemed to be here despite the two places very close distance. I opted to go later in the day so that it wouldn't be too hot, and despite being about 80 degrees the amount of tree cover allowed for a lot of shade, so it wasn't unbearabl...

南島語族的先民們在冰河時期後，飄洋過海來到了臺灣，也是西班牙人口中「福爾摩沙」這是西太平洋上的一個蕞爾小島，具備優越的地理位置及自然條件，進入到島上的人們積極探索植物的利用與價值，由海邊轉而進入山地，臨海植物可說是人們的優先選擇，也影響島上居民的生活作息。

On my nature walk today I went to the Chestnut Hill Reservoir. It was very sunny out and I saw many plants and insects around the plants. I saw many animals such as geese and swans. In one of my first observations (the one labeled Something), I noticed that there was an insect on the leaves of plant. I did not know what exactly the plant was, but I found it interesting because of the way it was structured, but also to see the way the insect interacted with it. In addition, another plane...

We're happy to announce another set of upcoming meetings! Here are the details:

We'll be looking at the superfamilies of the calyptrate flies. Specifically, we'll explain how to identify the groups using process-of-elimination. Using this approach, almost anything can be identified.

The Zoom meetings will open at 8 PM EDT on Sunday the 3rd and the 10th.

Join the Zoom Meeting here:

For this walk, I went to lewis morris park which is connected to Patriots path, 90 miles of trails that date back to the revolutionary war. I had a super busy morning so I brought my dog and used this walk as a time to relax. The weather was really nice out today, about 70º, sunny, and a slight breeze. I saw a bunch of different plant species ranging from tiny grass plants to giant trees. I also saw a lot of birds, squirrels, and small fish, but I wasn't able to get good pictures of them...

For my second nature walk, I went to a wooded area in my local country club. While most of the grounds are (unfortunately) home to well-gardened golf courses, there is a sizable patch of untouched forest that features a surprising variety of wildlife (for a while there were coyotes and foxes in the area, but I wasn't able to see any!). My nature walk was about forty to fifty minutes long, took place in the early afternoon, and the weather was sunny and rather warm (about 85-90 degrees ou...

Today I went on my nature walk around my local pond, Horn Pond in Woburn Massachusetts. It was around 7 pm when I started the walk it was warm when I started the walk around 76 but dropped to 73 by the end of the walk as the sun was setting. It was sunny with some clouds in the sky. There were a lot of trees around the pond and a lot of ground plants/vegetation. I didn't see many animals but if I went deeper into the woods I am sure I would've seen more animals. I was able to see the dif...

I went on a walk today at a park in Berlin. The weather was warm but not too sunny, and a little windy. I found some species of plants - a hazel, an oak, and some flowers I was not able to identify. As a budding ecologist, I attempted to make some observations about the species I encountered that I tied back to the lecture material on evolutionary relationships between organisms, their environment, and their ecosystems. For example, I considered the Catalpas tree I found - in Ge...

I started my walk in the woods near Mt. Hood, Oregon, however, I had to relocate after a short time due to some unforeseen circumstances. I still decided to include these observations as I believe they are valuable. It was a nice day with lots of sun and a light breeze. It was about 70 degrees, which is much cooler than the 95 degrees it was yesterday. I enjoyed observing the differences between the organisms present here and the organisms present back in New Hampshire. I found that whil...

Today I went to a different creek near my house- one that is a little more interacted with by humans; there were clear imprints from bicycles and the bayou was almost desolate of water. There were signs out recommending conservation of water, but why were there no preemptive laws to protect this area?

The temperature was down a lot from the last nature walk and it's rained the last couple of days, so while I saw some of the same species as the other bayou, certain abiotic factors...

Milkweeds (Asclepias sp.) are one of the most common, showy flowers now blooming in the greater metro area. Milkweeds are easily identifiable – they have sepals and petals, but they also have an elaborate corona, usually comprised of a “horn” and “hood.” Milkweeds also have opposite leaves and milky sap. There are 10 species of Asclepias found in the greater metro area, but Asclepias speciosa (showy milkweed) is our most common species. The Xerces Society has a great guide to the milkwee...

Lots of activity this month - thank you everyone!

We've added over 100 observations in the last month, and now reached an impressive 200 species. This has seen us turning over logs, inspecting grasses, wild flowers and dipping into the stream for creatures.

Favourite recent observations would have to be the discovery of common newts, leopard slugs and freshwater shrimps.