Laguna Seca, North Coyote Valley Conserv. Area BioBlitz, 11/5/23 by Ronald Horii
On 11/5/23, the BioBlitz Club and the Santa Clara Valley Audubon Society held a BioBlitz in Laguna Seca, which is part of the North Coyote Valley Conservation Area. A BioBlitz is a community science event where participants try to find and identify as many living organisms as possible within a specific area in a given time period. Participants include scientists, naturalists, families, students, teachers, and other community members. They use the iNaturalist app or website to record and upload observations. The data is added to a global biodiversity database, which is used by scientists and policy makers worldwide. This BioBlitz was led by Stanford entomologist Merav Vonshak, who has a website on them: https://www.bioblitz.club/ and a Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/bioblitz.club/. Here are the results for today's BioBlitz: https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/north-coyote-valley-november-2023-bioblitz. There was a BioBlitz here on 3/12/22: https://tinyurl.com/32v9yzw3 and 6/25/22: https://tinyurl.com/2p88urf3. Here are results from other BioBlitzes in the North Coyote Valley: https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/search?utf8=✓&q=north+coyote+valley. Here are my pictures of more past BioBlitzes: http://www.rhorii.com/#Bioblitz. Related links: Santa Clara Valley Audubon Society (SCVAS): https://scvas.org/. iNaturalist: https://www.inaturalist.org/. The event was held in the North Coyote Valley Conservation Area, which was a 937-acre land purchase by the City of San Jose, the Peninsula Open Space Trust (POST), and the Santa Clara Valley Open Space Authority (OSA). It is managed by the OSA. It is not open to the public yet, but there have been several events here. The first BioBlitz here was on 2/29/20: https://tinyurl.com/s55p2q3. The Laguna Seca area is at the northern end of the Coyote Valley, between Santa Teresa Blvd. and the Santa Teresa Hills. Laguna Seca is a seasonal lake. It forms the largest freshwater wetland in the County. Here's more information about North Coyote Valley: http://news.openspaceauthority.org/blog/north-coyote-valley-acquisition. To see more of my pictures of North Coyote Valley, see: http://www.rhorii.com/#NCoyoteValley. Below are pictures of the event: