A letter from Stokes Nature Center
It's that time of year again, where for one long weekend in April, every day is your birthday: full of surprises and gifts. It's the City Nature Challenge! Woohoo!
Here at Stokes Nature Center in Cache Valley, we are celebrating by encouraging everyone to bioblitz their backyard or front walk. What better way to bring in spring than with finally knowing what the heck kind of spiky weed is interrupting your lawn, or jetting out of a sidewalk crack? I guarantee you'll never see it as a weed again once you get to know what it is and start to notice how it too changes with the seasons as our year progresses.
This year is especially unique, for some pretty obvious reasons, but also for some exciting scientific reasons. iNaturalist had its first ever observation of the invasive European Firebug in Cache Valley just last month, and where there is one, there are more. This year, we're really interested to find out how far these recent invasives have spread throughout our community. Stokes is asking people to get low to the ground, and find these box elder bug imposters so that we can help document their spread into more of Utah.
We're also interested in folks finding anything new or unfamiliar in our amazing Uinta-Wasatch-Cache National Forest. Did you know that Logan Canyon has some species that are found nowhere else on earth? It's tiny nooks and microclimates along the cliff walls make each rock eddy its own Galapagos island of potential for new discoveries. If you are able after investigating your backyard, get out and adventure a little, and catalog some of Utah's amazing unique species which hide in plain sight. Perhaps new friends will find their way in front of your camera and inspire others with curiosity, too.
This most important thing though, is that you have fun. CNC is such a wonderful opportunity to remember that our world is still good, full of amazing life, and Utah is a great place to be. As people around the world all dedicate one long weekend in April to remember who their wild neighbors are and learn about them, choose to do your part and learn to see your home, too, with a deeper eye. You'll begin to see, like with that sidewalk weed, that you are an inescapable part of a beautiful and vibrant world that's all around you always.
From all of us at Stokes Nature Center and the City Nature Challenge, we wish everyone a very happy CNC! We are so very happy to be just one of many who are representing The Wasatch this year. Happy iNaturalisting, Utah!
Patrick Kelly (@patrickkelly907)
Director of Education
Stokes Nature Center
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