I am late with event reports, in part due to no pictures, I forgot to charge my camera for bioblitz, and my camera turned to eating batteries for the Sunapee trip which will be in another post.

The Bioblitz was for everything, and I mostly did the fish events but did a couple others. I will describe everything I did.

I started with two non fish based events. Then moved to three fish themed ones.

Birding was the first one, and though birding was what first got me into nature I drifted away from it for fish. It was a bit discouraging as some of the experts on this were a bit snooty. And it played to all my weaknesses (sea and shore birds, warblers, etc.) Still I saw a few species that were new to me. (red neck grebe, bonapartes gull, yellow billed cuckoo).

Next came insects. It being a cold and rainy morning means I didn't see any, a few red legged hoppers that excaped by hiding down in thorns and poison ivy, a moth i missed, and I caught a leaf hopper. A bit pathetic as I loved catching bugs as a kid.

Freshwater ponds was next. The park had one pond on its premisise. I caught alot of bluegill and some dragonfly larvae, the minnow trap they had set caught bullhead. From what the papers and the tank they were put in said the sunfish were pumpkinseed. But I saw no red on their opercular tab or blue cheek plate lines or spots. They looked more like bluegill to me. But at the tiny size of an inch or two I wonder if juvenile pumpkinseed look more like bluegill or if they misidentified them.

I skipped mammals as the mammal expert didn't show up and kept sampling the pond at this time.

I took a break during plants as i needed a rest and did plants last year.

Next came saltmarshes. This was a disaster. At least for me, the plant group did fine. Of the dozens who showed up their no one brought a container to sample creatures and bring back for ID. So all the backswimmers, shrimp, and mummichogs I got were for nothing. What's the point of surveying to ID if no one brings things back to ID? Also in a stack of drying salt hay was a hornets nest and someone had to be brought to the hospital when he got 11 stings.

This year had a new event called seining. I enjoy seining so I did it. It overlapped with algea and tide pooling though. But I did tidepooling last year and algea (my rest point last year) seemed uninteresting compared to seining.

I dipnetted while they seined and got pipefish, cunner, and juvenile sculpin (I think they said shorthorn but they could have been long). The two seiners got all that plus silversides and smelt. Someone netted a flouder on the other side of the group.

Oddly the special fish of the event was an atlantic moonfish caught by the tidepooling crew.

Next years event was september 15th 2012 and as it is the 10th enniversary they plan to make it special. (ideas bandied about included spending the night in the center the day before, and a 24 hour bioblitz but nothing was decided on yet).

Where was this Bio Blitz? It sounds totally discombobulated.

Where was this Bio Blitz? It sounds totally discombobulated.

A survey of all life found in an area. Each hour devoted to different things.

Sure, but where?

Sure, but where?

I forgot to mention? It was at Odiorne Point Park in Rye New Hampshire. The Seacoast Science Center (a small aquarium) hosted it.