I hadn't looked at the project stats for several weeks, but today I did, and it just happens to be we're at exactly 1000 observations and exactly 500 species. Wow! Things will be slowing down now for a few months, but don't stop enjoying our urban nature.
Hi all;
You might notice an increase in observations, and a slightly new name to the project. I decided to expand the boundaries of the project to include the neighborhoods on the east side of the ravine. The project now encompasses everything from 75 St to 99 St, and Argyll Rd to Whyte Ave. The number of people actually aware of this project is still really small.
P.S. - happy National Moth Week.
In case anyone is interested, there is a bioblitz going on next weekend, June 11-14, to see how many species and observations we can gather over those four days. The official observation app is NatureLynx, but I've created an iNaturalist project for the entire city, as an alternative means of participating. Any observations anywhere in the city over those 4 days will automatically be captured, including any in this Mill Creek project. If you want to see how we're doing over the course of the weekend, just look for the project "Edmonton BiodiverCity Challenge 2020" in iNat projects.
Well that's a bit of a landmark, to hit 100 species. Realistically, there have to be at least 1000 species that share this ravine with us, but getting decent photos of them and figuring out what they all are, is a bit of a challenge. I have a few more that I'm still working on identifying, and the season is early. Don't be shy, share your observations here!
Hi all;
Welcome to the Mill Creek South biodiversity survey project. I recently moved to the neighborhood, and I'm interested in discovering what lives here, so I set up this project to capture whatever anyone in the neighborhood is seeing. There don't seem to be a lot of iNat users in the area, so far, but hopefully that will change. If you walk in the ravine, i'll be "that guy with the net" wandering around.
This weekend (April 24-27) is the City Nature Challenge, a challenge for cities to see who can tally up the most observations and species over 4 days. Curiously, there is very little Canadian particpation - could have something to do with the timing perhaps? It was set up by people in California, and they sure didn't pick a good time of year for us! But apparently Calgary gave it a shot. There was some talk among naturalists about trying to do something in Edmonton, but it's just too early. Maybe later in the year, in a more "normal" year. Anyway, I decided to go out and do an informal bioblitz, of my own, and submit all the different organisms I could find on a short walk through the ravine on Sunday, April 26. I think I hit 42 or so, but I don't know what species some of the mosses and insects are. And I didn't get photos of everything. It'll be alot easier once the leaves are out.
