To celebrate Earth Day Week, our TTF watershed community came together to participate in our third ever week-long BioBlitz. A BioBlitz is an event during which we document as many species as possible (animals, plants, insects, and more!) in a certain area, typically over the course of 24 hours.
This year, we hosted a “mini-blitz” at Abington Friends School on Earth Day, as well as events in both Tacony Creek Park in Philadelphia and Ralph Morgan Park in Cheltenham, capping off the week. Many TTF friends made observations on their own time too, whether in neighborhood parks or their own backyards.
We had close to 1,300 observations of over 400 species by a total of 79 different people and organizations, making this Bioblitz our most successful yet! See results here.
Visit the TTF Watershed project here. What critters live on your street or near your school?
Events like this are critical to helping monitor the health of the watershed, by identifying species that indicate good health as well as harmful species. These programs are also a fun way to engage with friends and neighbors, discovering together all the amazing wildlife that calls our watershed home and relies on clean water to thrive.
Our watershed-wide BioBlitz also overlapped with the City Nature Challenge, which ran from April 26 through April 29. TTF, along with many other environmental organizations from the Greater Philadelphia area (Philly and the six adjacent counties) participated in this iNaturalist-based, global competition for the first time.
Over 150 cities participated worldwide in the challenge, totaling almost one million observations! Philadelphia and its surrounding counties came in 23rd place with almost 14,000 observations… a great success considering it was our first year participating.
Although the BioBlitz is over for now, that’s no reason to stop looking around and enjoying nature! We are counting on you to keep our momentum going…
You can still join in the fun by downloading the free iNaturalist app and continuing to share your wildlife observations throughout the year.
Check out our TTF Watershed project to see what’s been discovered lately! Please share this information with your friends, neighbors, students, teachers, and anyone else you know. Start an Nature Club on your block or in your classroom!
Need help? Just give us a call: 215-744-1853!
