Diario de tlr06754

I can’t wait for this year’s iNaturalist City Nature Challenge!

This will be my third year participating in the Denver/Boulder area, and fourth year overall. The goal I set the first year, 500 observations in 4 days, has eluded me so far (476 in 2018, then significantly less in 2019 and 2020, but this is a new year!).

Why am I so excited? When all the dust settled after I submitted my 2020 observations, I sat back and compared them to what I had seen in 2019. I’d had a cold in 2019, which limited me to making observations in the areas where I walked my dog, then in 2020, well, the pandemic held me to the same approximate area, essentially walking distance from my apartment, so the two years are pretty comparable with respect to the areas I covered. And while the challenge occurs on the same long weekend every year, spring didn’t get the memo in 2020. As a result, there were way fewer ID-able plant species out there compared to the previous year. That said, the lack of plants in bloom made me look harder for other observations and I found some super-interesting insects.

This is my 3rd spring in Colorado and I’m dying to see which of those two years experienced a “normal” spring by comparing to this year’s results. Geeky? Perhaps. Interesting and fun? Absolutely!

After I complete this year’s challenge, or maybe leading up to it, I plan download some weather data (temps, snowfall, etc.) and see if I can find the trigger for early or late spring. Is temperature or water availability the trigger for things to grow and blossom? (oh! Maybe I should download it now and try to predict what I’ll see next month…) At any rate, while 3 years of my non-scientific data collection is not going to lead to any world-changing conclusions, it will get me closer to the world around me and help me understand my own micro-environment that much better. Who knows where it will lead me next?!

My path to iNat started in the Adirondack Mountains of NY at the Tupper Lake Wild Center giftshop, where I limited myself to only three new books. Among them was Mary Ellen Hannibal’s Citizen Scientist. I hadn’t gotten to the chapter that talks about iNat yet, when I visited the San Diego Museum of Natural History and their third floor exhibit of gorgeous old books and drawings, promoting and describing citizen science. Intrigued, I picked up a handout and set up my iNat account later that day (much to the amusement/annoyance of my sister who was visiting from out of town). My friends feign interest and roll their eyes a bit when I geek out about it and my employees at work play along, and add this to the list of my “charming” quirks. Imagine if they knew what I’m about to tell you.

In month two, after I’d uploaded all of the good photos from my archives, I started trying to build a catalog of species at a local trail I frequent with my dog. It’s about a mile and a half along the edge of a lagoon, a very tame, very suburban attempt at recreating wilderness. Eyes peeled, trigger finger on the iPhone in my pocket, I set out to capture some images. I got a couple of good plant shots, then caught something unusual out of the corner of my eye. The biggest lizard I’d ever seen in this area, sunning itself on the back of a park bench! Wow! My mind fast forwarded to the lectures I would be asked to give after discovering a new species right here in Carlsbad, CA; the press accolades; the nerd street cred. I tied the dog to a fence post so she wouldn’t scare it away or move my arm and ruin the shot. I took a few pics from a distance, in case it darted. It still wasn’t moving. I couldn’t believe my luck! I snapped a few more, perfectly centered and focused. Then I moved even closer….oh. Noooooo! I’d made the groundbreaking discovery of a forgotten plastic toy alligator. I was so embarrassed, laughing out loud at myself, that I didn’t even pick up the “litter” self- righteously and discard it in the nearby trash bin.

I collected the dog, and moved on sheepishly. We did manage to catch some very cool spider egg sacks on the back of another bench, which helped to restore my confidence. On our way back to the car, I noticed that the alligator was gone.