BioBlitz – Yellow Point Ecological Society

Welcome to the YES BioBlitz 2025

You can sign up here YESBioBlitz2025 under the community menu.

Why join?

This is such important citizen science, which supports research and helps policy makers protect nature. Check out how your data makes a difference here. It is also a great opportunity to develop a local community of people who understand and care for nature.

When?

Practice starts now! This event lines up with the City Nature Challenge across Canada:

April 25^th – April 28^th Take pictures of wild fungi, plants and animals.

April 29^th– May 4^th Upload and identify the species in iNaturalist.

Results will be announced by May 15^th.

With whom?

You can do this on your own, with your outdoor class, or with others who you can teach or learn from. You already have a friendly community of online iNaturalists who are so helpful at this time of year. Join us at:

Saturday April 26^th, 10am: Holland Creek Trail walk led by Jen Moss of Friends of Holland Creek. Meet at the Holland Creek trailhead on Dogwood Drive.
Sunday April 27^th, 10am: Cable Bay Trail walk led by Jain Alcock-White of Champagne Hill Botanicals. Meet at the Cable Bay trailhead on Nicola Rd.

What you need – and it’s all free!

All you need to participate in the BioBlitz are:

An iNaturalist account or app, which is free.

A smart phone or camera to capture images or sounds.

A smart phone or computer to upload your images or sounds.

You can use the iNaturalist App or the webpage iNaturalist.ca.

Where to go?

The area for this year’s YES Bioblitz is the same as 2024. It includes Ladysmith, South Nanaimo, Cassidy, and our coastal waters to the east – see map below. There are many public parks where you can explore, and there are reserves and private lands where you need permission. NOTE: We do not have permission to enter the Woodley Range Ecological Reserve.

Only photos and sound recordings taken during the designated dates and times (6am on April 25^thto 8pm on April 28^th) in this geographical location will count towards our YES BioBlitz. Of course, everything entered in iNaturalist, year-round and in other places, is still valuable.

How?

Check out the resources and links below and note the top tips:

Take good pictures – focus properly, fill the frame or crop the picture, take different views.
Fill the gaps in local knowledge – go to places or look for species others tend to overlook.
Make your data shareable – make sure the location is recorded, and check that your license settings allows the data to be used. iNaturalist recommends using CC0, CC BY or CC BY-NC. Licenses are located under the account settings, in contents and display.

Participate as a school group

There are many great resources on iNaturalist and the Internet on how to participate as a school group, how to take photos that can be identified, and how to use iNaturalist. In some cases you should use Seek, which is a simpler app with more privacy controls, just as educational.

If you have questions, message us in iNaturalist or email us at yesbioblitz@gmail.com. If you want to chat, let us have your phone number and we will call back.

Useful links

Past bioblitzes

How to guides

Other projects in our area!

The 2024 YES Bioblitz

Welcome to the 2024 YES BioBlitz

You can sign up here YESBioBlitz2024 under the community menu. First, you have to register or log-in. It’s all free.

This is such important citizen science, which supports research and policy maker to protect our environment. More and more studies and projects are using this open-source information. It is also a great opportunity to develop a local community of people who understand and care for the environment.

April 26^th – April 29^th Take pictures of wild fungi, plants and animals.

April 30^th– May 5^th Upload and identify the species in iNaturalist.

Results will be announced by May 15^th and prizes chosen by the end of May.

New this year – we are planning a group walk in Cable bay area and in support of the Cable Bay Trail fund raising. Sign up here and meet up at Cable Bay trailhead on Nicola Rd at 10 am, Saturday April 27^th.

All you need to participate in the BioBlitz are:

An iNaturalist account or app, which is free.
A smart phone or camera to capture the images or sounds.
A smart phone or computer to upload the images or sounds.

You can use the iNaturalist App or the webpage iNaturalist.ca.

The area for the Bioblitz is the same as 2023. It includes Ladysmith, South Nanaimo, Cassidy, and our coastal waters to the east – see map below. There are many public parks where you can explore, and there are reserves and private lands, where you need permission. NOTE: We do not have permission to enter the Woodley Range Ecological Reserve.

Only photos and sound recordings taken during the designated dates and times (6 AM on April 26^thto 8 PM on April 29^th) in our chosen geographical location will count towards our YES BioBlitz. Of course, everything entered in iNaturalist, year-round and in other places, is still valuable.

This year’s prizes will be a selection of nature books and cards.

Participate as a school group

There are many great resources on iNaturalist and on the internet on how to participate as a school group, how to take photos that can be identified, and how to use iNaturalist.

If you have questions please message us in iNaturalist or email us at yesbioblitz@gmail.com. If you want to chat, let us have your phone number and we will call back.

Useful links

Checkout other projects in our area!

The YES BioBlitz 2023 Report

by Nikki Toxopeus

The results are in, the stats are done, and the prizes awarded!

The Yellow Point Ecological Society BioBlitz for 2023 is officially over! Thank you to all our participants and identifiers for making it so much fun and so successful.

We clocked up a similar number of species as previous years, with fewer observers. We had 298 research grade species as shown below, thanks to the quality of the observations and the support of the wider iNaturalist community helping ID the entries.

YES board members are not eligible for prizes, and so our prize winners are Annette Lefaivre (visiting from Calgary and helped map the area), Liam Steele (from Ladysmith and an outstanding young naturalist) and Heath Bleau (who recently moved, with his wife Kathy, to Nanaimo). Annette and Heath received a set of 10 Briony Penn Nature cards, and Liam was persuaded to accept a BC Museum Mushroom book, in part as a thank you for all his work helping to ID species.

We also awarded a school prize to the Grade 3 class at the Stz’Uminus Community School, who joined the BioBlitz for the first time and will be presented with a set of the Pacific North West Plant Knowledge Cards and a set of Briony Penn’s Nature posters.

Our results compared to last two years (given in brackets) are as follows:

Observations 1847 (2004, 2289)
Species 538 (556, 508)
Identifiers 165 (178, 252)
Observers 38 (47, 62)

This year, the most observed species were

Pacific Trillium (Trillium ovatum) was the most observed and by the most people.
Western Rattlesnake Plantain (Goodyera oblongifolia) was spotted multiple times by a few people.
The Great Blue Heron (Ardea herodias) was the top observed species last year and no one recorded it this year.

Other notable differences were that there were only 4 sightings of the Bald Eagle (Haliaeetus leucocephalus), Devil’s club (Oplopanax horridus) was absent this year, and western meadow rue (Thalictrum occidentale) was seldom seen.

The most observed species aligns with my experience of this season – the trilliums were out in force, the robins were furiously nesting and dominating the dawn chorus, and I did not see the Great Blue Heron by the Ladysmith Marina (but they are back now).

The top introduced and invasive species recorded remain:
Scotch Broom (Cytisus scoparius) – located along Cable Bay Trail, in Joan point Park, Holland Creek Park, Holland Creek Estuary Trail, Haslam Creek, near yellow Point Lodge and along power line ROWs. Broom cuts are planned for some of these locations.
European Holly (Ilex aquifolium) – located in Stocking Creek Park, Holland Creek Park, Morden Colliery, Kinsman Park, Estuary Trail, and other roadsides
Spurge-laurel (Daphne laureola) – all the above parks!!

I will be using and adding to this data set to help determine where we need to remove invasives from our parks and other special areas.

There was some great teaching and learning happening in the online chatter. Next year let’s expand the learning to the field, organise some group walks and take the iNater chatter to the field.

See you same time, same place next year! Reserve April 26-29^th 2024 for getting out in nature with your friends, family, and other naturalists. This date aligns with the global City Nature Challenge BioBlitz and we hope Nanaimo and other Vancouver Island Cities will join in again.

Many thanks! – Nikki Toxopeus