2022 Seminole County, FL Big Year!

In 2022, I was invited by some friends to participate in a friendly iNaturalist competition -- who could see the most species of anything and everything within a single county throughout the year. I selected Seminole County, FL, my home county, which is located north of Orlando. At 309 square miles, it is the third smallest county in Florida and has no coastline, but thankfully there are some fantastic preserves and parks.

I made an effort to visit most of the parks at least once, though there are a few parks that I missed. OK - maybe more than a few. My friend @scottsimmons will be dismayed that I completely skipped his favorite spot, Little Big Econ State Forest. It wasn't intentional! Here is a map of all of my 2022 observations.

I ended up with 1,404 species for the year – birds, bugs, plants, lichens, everything. That is about 80% of my Seminole County life list (1,758 species) though only 35% of the total number of species recorded in Seminole County by all users (3,992 species). Those 1,404 species were out of a total of 3,541 observations uploaded to iNaturalist. I added 738 species to my county life list in 2022. Not too shabby. [Technically we were counting taxonomic leaves and not species in this competition. So if I was able to identify something to genus, and I didn't have any other observations of that genus, it still counts as 1. If I also had another observation within that genus that was identified to species, then the first observation at the genus level wouldn't count.]

There are a few species that I added via kayak, such as searching for aquatic plants on Wekiwa Springs or when I was looking for dragonflies among the lilypads at Prairie Lake. More on that in a future post. It always feels like an adventure when I pack my net on the kayak and camera in my lap and and then try not to dunk my camera. I haven't yet -- and swinging a net from a sitting position isn't easy!

Birds: 146 species

My Seminole County life list is 258 species, so yeah – I didn’t focus on local birds. However, I did manage to add five species to my County list: Cerulean and Blue-winged Warblers (Thanks, Lori!), Philadelphia Vireo (Thanks, Scott!), Hairy Woodpecker, and Cave Swallow! The swallow was a surprise – I was trying to photograph dragonflies flying over my yard, because by Nov 1 I still didn’t have photos of Phantom or Twilight Darners for the year. There was a fairly persistent Tree Swallow flight, and then there was one that wasn’t! We also had a couple hurricanes this year, so I was able to add a few coastal terns to my year list including Sooty. Another surprise was hearing a Clapper/King Rail calling over my house one evening in May.

Mammals: 9 species
Reptiles: 21 species

Highlights were Pygmy Rattlesnake, Rough Greensnake, and Brahminy Blindsnake. The blindsnake is a tiny, introduced snake that looks like a black worm or planarian. I’ve now found a couple in the yard.

Amphibians: 6 species
Fish: 6 species
Insects: 577 species

The not-so-secret weapon for finding biodiversity is attracting insects with a blacklight or UV light. I added a mercury vapor light (e.g. a heat lamp from a pet store) to my setup this year, and I found 188 species in the backyard. I usually waited until the boys went to bed to set it up, though they loved getting out of bed and joining me in their underpants to see what the lights attracted.

Odonata: 68 species.

This is a fraction of my county life list, 81 species, but I found a few good ones: Taper-tailed Darner (Gomphaeschna antilope), Dragonhunter (Hagenius brevistylus), and Blue-striped Spreadwing (Lestes tenuatus) [found by Scott Simmons]. Fifteen of those 68 species were observed in my suburban yard, including Florida Baskettail (Epitheca stella) and Fine-lined Emerald (Somatochlora filosa).

Butterflies: 49 species, including the locally rare Eastern Pygmy-Blue, Fulvous Hairstreak, and American Snout.
Robber Flies: 18 species
Arachnids: 30 species
Mollusks: 9 species
Plants: 457 species, including 5 orchids and 8 airplants (Tillandsia)
Lichens: 68 species

I started performing UV and KOH testing toward the end of the year. Chemical tests are necessary for identification in many cases. I expect lichens to feature prominently in next year's competition!

Other Fungi: 55 species
Protozoans: 3 species

How respectable is 1,404 species? I’m not sure, though it’s more species than most individual users have recorded from populated counties in Florida. I don’t know if anyone else has tried something like this before in Florida. I was competing with some friends in other states, and I didn't win the competition. So I guess I could have done better!

One of the great things about iNaturalist is that experts and other volunteers help each other along the way. A number of folks helped me with identification, especially plants which I'm still learning. Among the many folks who helped, @jayhorn, @florida_flora, @marykeim, @tadenham, and @simonsr35 helped me the most with plants, @coolcrittersyt and @brandonwoo with grasshoppers, and @nomolosx with leafhoppers and tree hoppers. It was a fun game – one that found me furiously scanning tree bark on December 31 looking for more species.

Some of my favorite Seminole County observations throughout the year are included with this post!

All species and observations can be viewed here

Posted on January 21, 2023 11:18 PM by stevecollins