If you were taking photos of the nature around you on the long weekend, you could become a citizen scientist by sharing what you spotted with the Big Backyard BioBlitz.
The event, staged by the Nature Conservancy of ÎÚÑ»´«Ã½, aims to build community science and conservation efforts by asking people to identify plants and animals that inhabit backyards, hiking trails and parks across the country.
The blitz organizers want photos that were taken between Thursday and Monday.
Conservancy spokesman Andrew Holland said the information collected each year helps the non-profit organization and scientists map species and monitor ecological changes.
On Monday, people who had joined the blitz were logging their finds on iNaturalist, a web and app platform.
Averyl Shifflet, a biology student at the University of Victoria, logged several fungus-eating lady beetles and many types of bees over the weekend while visiting parks with friends.
“I’m particularly interested in insects,” said Shifflet, an aspiring entomologist.
Shifflet is planning a separate BioBlitz event with other biology undergrad students and the Friends of Uplands Park group on Aug. 17 and 18.
They’re planning to set up bug lights to attract moths and other night-time insects.
“We’re going to have snacks and drinks and then everyone can go on their own and walk around the park,” she said. “It’s a lot of fun. It’s almost like collecting Pokemon and I get to log all the cool things I see.”
Warren Layberry wasn’t initially aware of the Big Backyard BioBlitz until he was contacted by the ÎÚÑ»´«Ã½.
But the prolific Esquimalt iNaturalist user said he was more than happy to contribute.
“It’s a great idea,” he said of the BioBlitz. “It’s easy to think of species as being things that are on the Nature Channel or off in the woods and provincial parks or whatnot, but they’re all around you.”
A residential street can form a surprisingly rich and complex web of ecosystems, he said.
Layberry intially got into the practice when a doctor suggested that he take walks after every meal to help manage his blood sugar not long after editing a Colin Varner book on Vancouver Island ecosystems.
“After editing a book about the flora and the fauna and realizing, oh, I should take some walks — it sort of just slotted naturally in place.”
That was two years ago.
Layberry has logged 900 species in about 7,500 observations since, nearly all within walking distance of his home in Esquimalt.
“It’s become a big part of how I interact with the world around me.”
He said that the number of species he’s discovering has slowed down over time, but there’s still a lot of variety out there waiting to be discovered particularly in the fungal and plant species categories.
“You have to be a real sort of moss-and-lichen person to get some of the finer points, but they’re all out there,” Layberry said.
Nature Conservancy of ÎÚÑ»´«Ã½ said that any photos taken between Aug. 1 and 5 uploaded after Monday will still count as part of the event.
Participants can join by registering on the conservancy’s website, where they will get instructions on how to upload their photos on the iNaturalist app and website.
