Above: The Rotary Club is organizing a town-wide “Bio Blitz” this weekend.
The Southborough Rotary Club won’t be able to host its annual Earth Day Town Clean Up event this year. But they didn’t want to let another Earth Day pass them by without celebration. So, they found a different, safe way for the community to embrace the outdoors.
The volunteer group is organizing a town-wide “Bio Blitz”:
The Rotary Club of Southborough is encouraging residents of our community to get personal with the wide diversity of creatures great and small living among us here in town. Earth Day is coming and what better way to celebrate this special day than getting to know who is living with you. . .
How do you Bio Blitz? You download the “iNaturalist” app (free) on your phone and go outside to find out who is growing, crawling, flying, slithering, munching, etc steps away. Alternatively you could get adventurous and wander around in the woods and fields looking for something to discover. . .
The iNaturalist app will help you identify what it is you have discovered by using the “what did I see” option. You get a list of likely suspects, which you can use to identify what is the creature or plant you have captured in your phone. Having done this you “Share” your discovery with the world. The app also allows you to read about the life your discovery leads with the appropriately labeled “About” option. . .
The Southborough’s Bio Blitz is going to take place on Saturday and Sunday, April 24th and the 25th. It is the perfect individual contribution you can make during these pandemic times to celebrate Earth Day. You identify stuff, share it between these dates and the Rotary Club counts how many species got tagged between these two dates.
For the full details with instructions, open the pdf here. It includes a link to a video explaining the tool here.
While the promotions focus on the outdoors in your own backyards, Rotary members will also aid those who head to two of the Town’s trails this weekend.
The activity announcement from Rotary’s Carl Guyer explained:
In response to the constrictions of the current pandemic The Rotary Club of Southborough is sponsoring an Earth Day activity aimed at engaging residents with the natural world around them in a private way.
The activity we call “Bio-Blitz” asks residents to venture outside and use the technology of their mobile phones to better acquaint themselves with the diversity just beyond their doorstep.
The Bio-Blitz is a concept originally developed by the National Geographic Society, that we, the Rotary Club of Southborough, are simply bringing it to a local level. . .
To support this activity, members of the Rotary Club will be at two of Southborough’s natural preserves.
From 10 to 12 AM each of the two days at the Breakneck Hill Conservation Land trail head and the Chestnut Farm trail head, members of the Rotary Club will be present to provide “socially distance” assistance to those who decide to explore these lands.
There is more diversity out there than you can imagine and getting to know some of it will improve anyone’s life.
