Current Nature: 2024 Nantucket BioBlitz – Making Nature Count

Dog vomit slime mold, harlequin bugs, ghost pipe, searobins, American coot, and hickory tussock moths. What do these things have in common? They were all seen on Nantucket during the 2024 BioBlitz!

The Nantucket BioBlitz just wrapped up it’s fourth year of cataloging every living thing on the island in July. In a two-week period (July 13th – July 26th), volunteers, conservation professionals, students, and other community members canvased the island taking photos of living things (or clues to something alive) and uploading those observations to the iNaturalist app.

What is a bioblitz anyway? Bioblitzes are a popular approach to engage people and collect biodiversity data. It’s a great combination of the two because anyone can join in the blitz, taking photos of things they see, joining blitz groups to survey certain habitats, and just keeping eyes open. High quality data results when the photos are identified by knowledgeable people (local or regional experts) and identification confirmed. That’s where iNaturalist comes in. We do have local experts on Nantucket for certain aspects of biodiversity (like plants, birds, and many marine species), but we don’t have the expertise locally for all things. The iNaturalist project uses its vast amounts of data to identify images. IDs are reviewed by iNaturalist members and once there is agreement on the identification, it becomes research grade.

As of this writing, the 2024 BioBlitz came in at 3,653 observations resulting in 982 individual species! That’s the most of any of our previous Blitzes! In 2021, which previously held the record for most species, there were 863 species. And in 2023, there were just over 3,000 observations – a number we weren’t sure we could beat. And those were month-long events. For 2024, we had decided to focus a little more towards the “blitz” part of the BioBlitz and concentrate efforts over a two-week period instead of the month-long events of previous years. And everyone still blew it out of the water!

Not all of this year’s observations have made it to research grade yet. Currently, about 45% are research grade. That number will likely improve as observations that recently came in are further reviewed.

Why do we pick July? It’s the peak of a lot of things on Nantucket; the peak of people on the island means lots of eyes open to what’s out there. The peak of growing season, flowering and fruiting of plants means lots of things to observe. And with breading season for many animal and insect species – there is just so much life to see and catalog. Put that all together with some fantastic weather and we had great results.

Speaking of results, what do we get out of all this? For the Nantucket Land and Water Council and the Linda Loring Nature Foundation, the two organizations who put on the Nantucket BioBlitz, there are two main goals: 1) two get people out into the natural world of Nantucket, learning to appreciate the diversity of life on our small island, and 2) creating a record of biodiversity throughout the county of Nantucket during this time of year.

We’re still going through all the observations (remember that there are more than 3,600!) but here are a few fun, interesting, or new-to-me finds from this year. Nature is amazing!

The Violet coral fungus (Clavaria zollingeri) is a small purple fungus of the wet woods. A striking little fungus, they are decomposers growing on leaf litter on the forest floor. Both individuals found during the blitz were found in the Squam area on the northeastern side of the island.

Violet coral fungus

The Ruddy Ducks (Oxyura jamaicensis) that were seen during the blitz weren’t that unusual for Nantucket generally. However, a pair being seen in July, is pretty unusual and a great natural history aspect to document.

Maybe not unusual to others, but new to me were the Barracudas (Genus Sphyraena) documented in the waters just north of the Nantucket Field Station as well as off of Madaket. These are likely Northern Sennets which are indeed members of the barracuda family, but only grow to be about a foot in length. I was thinking more of the large, toothy, predatory fish. But that’s what is great about a BioBlitz! We’re always learning new things.

One of my other favorite observations was the infamous Monk Parakeet (Myiopsitta monachus) that had been seen in several places around the island. They are a very distinct bird with an overall green body with a gray face and breast and pale pink bill. They may seem out of place on Nantucket. Nonetheless, at many locations in the Northeast, feral populations of Monk Parakeets have become fairly well established. We may be documenting the beginning of a population on Nantucket…or just an escaped pet. Either way, an important documentation for the island.

That is just a taste of the myriad of observations. The caterpillar diversity, the saltmarsh and beach diversity, grasslands, woodlands, insect fauna, and more. You can check out all the results on our iNaturalist Project Page. You can scroll through the over 3600 observations via a photo gallery or a map. The summary page will tell you the leaders for species, observations, as well as which were most frequently observed. For example, this year, Northern Bayberry (Morella pensylvanica) was the most observed species. It makes sense; it’s common throughout the island, it’s just starting to fruit, and it is frequently found along trails where people tend to be. However, Common Milkweed and Monarch Butterflies were winners of the “most observed” in two previous years. Very few monarchs were observed this year. We don’t have enough years of data to see any patterns. It could just be a factor of effort and who is looking. But it’s interesting to note the timing of observations and whether things change from year to year.

We continue to be amazed by the variety of plants, birds, fungi, insects and more that are found on this little island. Photos taken during the survey period (July 13-26) can still be uploaded, so you can join the blitz today by submitting photos of any living thing – plant, bird, mollusk, insect, etc. And because some photos continue to be identified by experts from around the world, the number of species continues to rise, so these numbers keep going up!

None of this would have been possible without all of the great participation throughout the island. The Linda Loring Nature Foundation and the Nantucket Land and Water Council want to thank everyone who participated. A special “Golden Finder” award was given to our lead seeker, Reed who uses the iNaturalist handle lythronax246. Reed played a major role in this year’s BioBlitz ranking first on the leaderboard with a total of 622 observations and 236 species. Thanks Reed!

Reed with the Golden Finder award

If you weren’t able to join us this year, mark your calendars for July 2025. We’re already thinking of ways to increase coverage and diversity. We will target areas that have been consistently under surveyed. We’ve already talked about more guided walks which will function as group blitz programs to lesser-studied habitats and geographic areas. We may also do a night survey or two to add more nocturnal species to the list.

Let us know your ideas! Everyone is welcome to join the BioBlitz and we’d love to hear your ideas to make it fun and interesting for everyone.