Birders needed....

In conjunction with NatureMapping and with generous support from the Arboretum Foundation, the UW Botanic Gardens will be holding a "BioBlitz" in the Washington Park Arboretum. What is a BioBlitz, you are asking? It is when teams of volunteers go into an area over a 24 hour period and try to identify every plant, bird, mammal, insect, spider, herp, fish...well you get the idea.

We will be starting on May 21 at 3 pm and concluding on May 22 at 1, with a public period from 1-3, based out of the old greenhouse near the Graham Visitor's Center.

We would love it if some of you were willing to volunteer on the birding teams and/or lead the owl walk Friday night. (We know where the barred owls like to roost). The website is http://depts.washington.edu/natmap/bioblitz/wpa/ - you can get the information there to volunteer.

And...if you don't want to help out, feel free to come by at 1 on the 22nd to see what we found! It is going to be a fun event that will provide us with some useful baseline data we need for Foster Island that will be impacted by the widening of 520 and plans to daylight the stream for salmon.

Thanks,

Karen Dvornich
Director, NatureMapping
Washington Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit
College of the Environment
University of Washington
206-616-2031
vicon at uw.edu