Diario del proyecto Biota of the Claremont Hills Wilderness Park

September 7, 2021 marks the third official celebration of California Biodiversity Day, an annual event created in 2018 to celebrate the state’s exceptional biodiversity and encourage actions to protect it. This year organizations throughout the state are hosting California Biodiversity Day events from September 4 to September 12, 2021, and the City of Claremont Park Rangers together with the Friends of the Wilderness Park be celebrating in the Claremont Hills Wilderness Park on the morning of Saturday, September 11.

If you're in the area, please join us on Saturday morning, September 11th, starting at 7:00 AM. Make observations, help others learn to use iNaturalist, and answer questions about Park flora and fauna! Just look for the canopy near the North Mills entrance for more information! All iNaturalist observations made in California from September 4 – September 12 will automatically be added to the California Biodiversity Day 2021 project, and, of course, any observations made in the Park will be added to our project.

The weather is supposed to cool off a little bit by next Saturday (predicted high of 87°F), so it should be a nice morning in the Park.

If you would be willing to work a shift at the booth, please message me!

Well, not a huge a huge number of observations were made in the Wilderness Park on California Biodiversity Day – only seventeen. (Actually, it should be "Days", as California counted observations made from September 4 – September 12.)

Among the seventeen observations were 14 different taxa, of which 11 could be identified to species. You can check them all out here. None of the taxa were new this year.

You can also see photos of Friends at the Park on the Friends' blog.

Because the Park was closed on California Biodiversity Day 2020, our only previous Biodiversity event in the Park was in 2019. That year, when the event only lasted for two days, forty-eight new observations were reported to our iNaturalist project, and thirty-seven different species were reported, including 13 species not previously reported to iNaturalist for the Park.

This year's results seem a little disappointing compared to 2019, but I think several factors contributed to the lower numbers this year. One is that the COVID-19 pandemic is still having an effect. At least one person articulated a hesitancy to participate in a potentially crowded situation with people of unknown vaccination status, and at least two of our scheduled volunteers could not attend because they were in quarantine due to a potential COVID-19 exposure. Another factor was the weather. On the weekends, when most people come to the Park, the average high temperature was 87°F in 2019 but 99°F this year. Whew! In addition, access to Evey Canyon, where most of the new species were observed in 2019, is more difficult this year with the closure of the parking lot at the entrance. Lastly, it's not surprising that we are seeing fewer new species, as a lot of species have been filled in during the intervening two years. As our species list becomes more complete, observations of new species will naturally become rarer.

If you have observations from Sept. 4 – 12 that you haven't posted yet, don't worry. We will keep collecting them indefinitely. And all Observations made in California on those days (including the ones from the Wilderness Park) are also collected on the statewide California Biodiversity Day project run by the California Department of Natural Resources.

Our next planned iNat event in the Wilderness Park will be for the City Nature Challenge on April 29 -May 2, 2022. Observations made in the Park will count for LA County, which enters as a "City". We also plan to have an event in the Wilderness Park again next year for California Biodiversity Day. Although the official dates have not yet been announced, we expect it will be September 3 – September 11, 2022. Mark these dates on your calendar now!