Happy Homecoming to our Alumni in town today!

Good morning and welcome to day 6 of our BioBlitz challenge! Two more days to go! Today will be potentially another big day: First day of the weekend, lots of folks in town, and another outing to one of our more quiet out-of-town places to find the wild things for observations.

If you are tailgating today and/or have folks coming to town for the Homecoming football game at Appalachian State University, let them know about our BioBlitz! Everyone can participate, they do not have to be AppState students or employees, and they do not even have to join our project for their stuff to count (although we'd welcome them, of course). All they have to do is make observations while on campus today and upload them to iNaturalist.

If you're looking for an opportunity to escape the traffic and tailgating that ensues in town with AppState football games, we will have the gate open for a quiet afternoon at the Dark Sky Observatory from 1-4 PM today. You can get there by following directions on your GPS, download and print the PDF, or check out the directions in the video introduction. We can stay until the astronomers arrive to set up their public event for tonight. If you are interested in joining that as well, please note the evening event at the telescope requires prior registration. You can get tickets at https://dso.appstate.edu/public-access. No tickets are needed for the BioBlitz, just stop by whenever it is convenient for you within the open gate time frame this afternoon. Drive all the way up the road to the visitor center for parking, or park anywhere along the side of the road (please make sure you are not blocking it).

Progress update:
The challenge is going great! We've cracked the 3,000 observation threshold with more than 600 species identified so far. Check out the project Stats tab for a breakdown of what has been identified so far. (The 'species' count on that page also includes observations identified to genus or family level, for example, and thus shows up higher than the actual species count.)

Remember we're giving out prizes for most species observed in total, but also for master botanist (most plant species observed), master entomologist (most insect species), master ornithologist (most bird species) and master mycologist (most fungi and lichen species). So if you are not in the running for most species overall, you could specialize in one of these areas for another chance at a prize. The leading contenders to beat this weekend are: leighalobelia for master botanist (136 species) and master mycologist (44 species), and rivermont for master entomologist (13 species) and ornithologist (35 species).

Let's get out there and find some more organisms to observe! The weather forecast looks great again with a mix of sun and clouds and temperatures in the 50s this afternoon. Tomorrow we're expecting more cloud cover and a chance of rain later in the afternoon.

Posted on October 29, 2022 11:55 AM by annkatrinrose