Noticing Nature – Where we Live
It is all too easy, while dashing off to a distant ‘hotspot’ or simply, while walking down to the shops or a nearby park, to overlook the wide diversity of plants and animals that we live alongside … even in suburbia. We generally don’t think there is a lot of wildlife in our communities and so we don’t look for it and rarely notice it.
If you live in, or visit the town of Baie-D’Urfé or you go walking in the Morgan Arboretum, both on the West Island of Montreal then this website will show you where you can find out about the wild neighbours. What’s more it is also the place you can contribute your observations to the list. The areas covered are indicated on the sketch-maps below.
What’s already on the local biodiversity list?
The links below will take you to pages where you can view and explore illustrated lists of the many species that have been seen in the local areas … in fact along the streets on which you and I live.
Baie-D’Urfé, Québec – All species (704 species)
https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/baie-d-urfe-quebec
Morgan Arboretum – Plants (713 species, including fungi and lichens)
https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/morgan-arboretum-plants
Morgan Arboretum – Birds (152 species)
https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/morgan-arboretum-birds
Morgan Arboretum – Insects & Spiders (527 species)
https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/morgan-arboretum-insects-spiders
To draw all this together, the following link is centred on BaieD’Urfé and includes many of the adjacent municipalities that form the “West Island”
https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/1001-species-rg
This larger area hosts a total of 2723 different species … and you can be certain there are many more just waiting for someone to record their presence.
How you can contribute
These above species lists are curated using iNaturalist.
If you are interested in adding to the observations, or in making your own lists of wildlife that you have encountered then you can open a free account with iNaturalist at the following link: https://www.inaturalist.org
You simply use the iNaturalist website or phone app to create a personal record of what you see, anywhere on the planet – it will also help you make identifications as you upload a picture by offering suggestions for you choose from. Anything you record within the two defined areas of the Morgan Arboretum or Baie-D’Urfe will be automatically added to those “projects” so the whole process is very simple.
Questions? Send me a message using the Contacts link at the top of the page and I will be happy to help.
This site was conceived as a companion to a Substack newsletter that I have been writing since the summer of 2023 – Both associated sites consider the wildlife and plants that we live near, yet too often overlook in the rush to get elsewhere, matters environmental along with seasonal considerations of gardening for wildlife and plants. Interesting rabbit holes chanced upon along the way will be investigated – even if I wander into other topics from time to time.
You can find that Substack at : https://1001species.substack.com … you can drop by occasionally, or you can subscribe (free and secure) so that you don’t miss and of the posts.
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