1 Park

70 professional scientific volunteers

365 acres

Countless plants and animals

Well, maybe not countless… In fact, on May 3^rd and 4^th nearly 70 volunteers with scientific backgrounds gathered at Clark Reservation State Park with one goal in mind: spend 24 hours searching for all the plants, animals, fungi, lichen, and even bacteria found in the park. This type of inventory is usually called a BioBlitz. The BioBlitz at Clark Reservation also had another purpose. There was a special focus on rare and endangered species as well as classification of communities. Also on May 3rd was a concurrent BioBlitz at Minnewaska State Park, which also focused on rare and undocumented species.

One endangered species, the American hearts-tongue fern, is actually well documented at Clark. In fact, nearly 90% of the state’s population of this fern is found in two state parks: Clark Reservation and Chittenango Falls. But since we already knew it was here, this plant was not the focus of our BioBlitz. We wanted to find undocumented species, and soon we hope to know if any were found! Volunteers have until the end of May to submit their data.

Biodiversity, the variety of living things found in one place, is often used as a measure of ecosystem health. Knowing what is in our park will help us make informed land management decisions and help us conserve our natural resources. That’s why the BioBlitz was so important.

It was also a lot of fun! All the scientists had a great time looking for the things they love, and we found a lot! A main focus for our BioBlitz was Glacier Lake, a rare meromictic lake formed at the end of the last ice age nearly 11,000 years ago. Today it is home to many species; such as eastern newts, painted and snapping turtles, fish (bullheads, walleye, pumpkin seeds to name a few), and birds (like osprey, wood ducks, and flycatchers).

Early Sunday morning I joined the birding team to look for our feathered friends. I wasn’t too excited about getting up at 5 in the morning on a Sunday, but it turned out to be worth it! I barely even noticed the cold rain! We saw a lot of great birds. Many of them like the cardinals, blue jays, chickadees and juncos you can see anytime, but some of them you are not so easy to spot. Early spring is one of the best times to look for warblers. Many species are only here for a few days as they pass through on their migration north. Others are here year-round, but when the leaves come out in the forests they are hard to spot. The highlight for the morning was the black-throated green warbler that came in close to check us out, and then followed us along the trail for a while singing for us! We also saw a black and white warbler, a small flock of yellow-rumped warblers and a yellow warbler.

All in all the BioBlitz was a huge success! Stay tuned for the results of the 2 Bioblitzes in July here on the NYS Parks Blog.

featured image is the Botany team at the Clark Bioblitz, by Steve Young; post by Katie Mulverhill