Texas Pollinator BioBlitz

The Texas Pollinator BioBlitz is coming to the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center on Friday, October 16. It's a citizen science event led by the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, and the whole point is to spend the day observing and documenting pollinators across the Center's gardens.

If you've never heard the term, a 'bioblitz' is basically a community-driven biological survey. The name was coined back in May 1996 by a group of biologists and naturalists at Kenilworth Aquatic Gardens in Washington, D.C., and it's since become a way for regular people to help scientists map out what's living in a specific area. This particular one grew out of brainstorming sessions with agencies supporting the Texas Monarch and Native Pollinator Conservation Plan, a 41-page document that outlines TPWD's strategy to reverse the decline of eastern-migrating monarchs.

On the day, you'll learn how to use iNaturalist, an app that lets you record sightings and share them with a wider network of researchers. From there, you'll be out in the gardens reporting monarch sightings, planting native gardens, and taking nature walks. You can upload photos of butterflies, moths, bees, beetles, and hummingbirds to social media and to iNaturalist, and there are after-dark hikes that help entomologists identify moths and other night-flying insects. A previous edition brought in more than 2,290 observations and 440 species, so there's a good chance you'll spot something you've never noticed before.

It's a statewide initiative, but this part happens right here in Austin at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center. Keep in mind that while the BioBlitz is part of a larger program, the specific schedule for this edition hasn't been fully confirmed yet, so it's worth checking in closer to the date.