Scientific quest catalogs creatures living in Great Mountain Forest

FALLS VILLAGE— About 40 citizen scientists came to the Yale Forestry Camp in Great Mountain Forest Saturday, June 7, to participate in a bioblitz as part of Connecticut Trails Day.

A bioblitz is a short but intense effort by citizen scientists to go out in the woods and try to find as many species as possible.

GMF director Mike Zarfos and Billy Gridley of Norfolk’s Aton Forest facilitated.

During the orientation Gridley and Zarfos explained that the idea is to get out in the wild, take lots of photos, and worry about sorting out the identifications later.

They explained how to use the iNaturalist app for this purpose.

Gridley likened it to a treasure hunt.

Outside the group split up into three smaller groups. Two of those disappeared into the woods leaving Hartley Mead, an insect specialist, with a group consisting of three middle-schoolers (and one parent) from Colebrook.

The target was a modest woodpile near a fire pit on the camp’s lawn.

A tarp covering the woodpile was removed, and Mead and the young people started disassembling the pile.

Success was almost immediate. The group found a long-horned beetle, and Mead produced a jeweler’s loupe so everyone could get a really good look.

The students — Jonah Gone, D.G. Pedro and Greyson Hepburn — dove into the woodpile without hesitation, even when a garter snake was discovered.

Billy Gridley led the effort at Great Mountain Forest.Patrick L. Sullivan

The adults — Mead and Greyson’s mother Jenny Castellano — maintained a respectful distance.

But D.G., Jonah and Greyson were all over the snake. The excitement mounted when they found at least three more and successfully captured them by hand for closer inspection.

Also on the species roster from the woodpile: assorted crawling things such as centipedes or millipedes, the long-horned beetle, something else that scurried away before anyone got a good look, and a slug.

D.G. Pedro took time out from the species quest to make drawings of the findings. A very realistic drawing of a garter snake appeared on her pad in just a few moments.

After the woodpile was exhausted, Mead said the next target was ticks. He and the boys wandered off into the nearby tall grass, while D.G. worked on drawings and Castellano, after some incisive remarks about her past experiences with tick-borne diseases, stayed put in the mowed area.

After a while the explorers came back and were amazed to find precisely zero ticks on themselves.

“The one time you want to get a tick…” mused D.G.