HodgePodge Images: MES: Viles Arboretum BioBlitz, Augusta, Maine

“A bioblitz is a short, intensive survey where a group of people work together to document as many species as possible in a defined place and time. For this event, the primary focus will be insects, though participants are welcome to note other taxa as well. Over the course of the bioblitz, participants will actively sample insects using a wide range of methods, including sweep netting, beat sheets, pitfall traps, malaise traps, light trapping, and other techniques. Traps will be set in advance and serviced throughout the event, and participants can move through different habitats such as native plantings, forested areas, and wet sites to collect specimens. There will be a strong emphasis on both collecting and identification, with shared workspace in the barn for sorting, pinning, and examining specimens under microscopes.

The goal of this BioBlitz is to generate a baseline species list for the arboretum, with a particular focus on how insect diversity responds to native plantings and habitat variation. This will serve as a snapshot in time that can support future monitoring, outreach, and potential research or funding opportunities. It is also an opportunity to strengthen connections within MES and create a shared, hands-on learning experience.

This collaborative and flexible event is intended for MES members and non-members with an interest in entomology, whether you are highly specialized or broadly curious.” Saturday, June 27 at noon until Sunday, June 28, noon (from MES BioBlitz information email)

I arrived at Viles feeling excited — a full 24 hours of exploring an incredible site with enthusiastic people. I’d bought a secondhand flash to use with my OM gear but didn’t have much time to practice with it before the event. My dog Mattie had a sleepover with a friend, so I packed up my cameras and headed to Augusta,

The weekend started with Chase and Hillary giving an overview of the BioBlitz: 24 hours of collecting, why the event matters, and how the logistics would work. Once introductions were done, everyone scattered across the grounds. I moved between groups trying to get photos of the participants while keeping an eye out for insects.

My first real stop was at a cluster of yellow‑green staghorn sumac flowers, Viles has an apiary on site, and the organizers asked us not to collect honeybee specimens; I stuck to photography, collecting with the camera. The sumac was busy — other bees, hornets, and hover flies frequented the blooms. Identification isn’t my strength, so I documented and left the IDs to iNaturalist and the more experienced folks there.

I spent some time hanging out with Cathie and Kathy while they hunted.

Later, when I checked back at the barn, people were pinning specimens. Watching the process was interesting: pinning preserves dead insects for study, makes them easier to identify, and reduces decay. From what I gathered, the labelling and identification lists would go to the Arboretum, and the specimens themselves would end up in the Maine State Museum’s collection. I also learned that although the Arboretum sits on state land, its day‑to‑day operations are handled by an independent non‑profit.

Pinned insects got tags noting location, date, and habitat — field, forest, aquatic, or wetland — and collectors were encouraged to sign their names on the back. There were plenty of reference books on hand, lots of help from expert volunteers, and iNaturalist to supplement identifications. Tiny insects were glued to point mounts while softer‑bodied specimens were stored in liquid. For photographing or examining live insects, they might be chilled in a freezer for five minutes so they slowed down and could be handled more easily.

After dinner people set up sleeping arrangements and prepared for night observations. I couldn’t stay up all night because I had to be at work Monday morning, but I did poke around at a few of the after‑dark activities. The barn’s back lights shone down the middle path, making walking back to the light tricky but attracting bugs to the wall. There was also a sweet light box that seemed to be made from a drying rack with a white cover with lights inside that drew in insects. I tried out my new flash and got some sweet shots.

Up on the hill, Esther had set out experimental moth baits — beer, wine, and mixes with apple or banana. In daylight I photographed a spider on the bait, but after dark I only found ants. Esther thought the moths might be more active in the middle of the night, though neither of us was eager to go check in the wee hours. I heard Chase had a light trap near the pond, but there was only so much time to visit everything. I took my tripod into the field and made a long‑exposure shot of fireflies. If it is true that different fireflies blink at different rates, I had one that had a single, slow blink, one that had 5 quick blinks, and one with 3 quick flashes.

When I returned to the barn at night, folks were busy identifying, sorting, pinning, and preserving samples. New volunteers were learning proper pinning and point mounting techniques; Chase gave a clear demo on spreading the wings of a skipper butterfly.

In the morning it seemed like many people were back at the same workstations where they’d been the night before, and a table had become a hub for sorted collections grouped by type.

I missed the Saturday afternoon collecting tour but joined Chase on Sunday morning for a walk through parts of the property with a group of what seemed like relative newbies. He fitted everyone with nets and headed out. We started near the moth baits on a hill, then moved into the woods where collecting sites had been set up, I think, on Friday.

When we were preparing labels on Saturday to be used throughout the weekend, I noticed we had 4 general habitats, forest, field, aquatic, and wetland. We weren’t really prepared at this time for aquatic samples, but Chase and team had set out yellow pitfall trap bowls with soapy water to keep them contained in the other three habitats. In the forest there were also larger white containers along guide walls about six inches high to funnel walking insects into pits. We didn’t pull many samples from those white containers; Chase speculated they’d been used by another project and might have a repellant residue. The liquid from the bowls was poured through a paper paint strainer, labeled, folded, and sealed in ziplock bags to bring back to the barn for sorting and preservation.

Next we crossed into a meadow with a Malaise Trap — a tent‑like funnel that directs flying insects into a collection cup. This field also had the yellow pitfall bowls. We disconnected the cup, filtered the catches, and prepared the samples for transport.

Walking back through a woody path lined with sumac and grape vines, Chase showed net sweeping techniques and explained how to bag samples and store them in the freezer for later lab work.

On the northwest corner of campus, near community ball fields, we crossed a boardwalk over a wet meadow to a drier spot where the last wetland pitfall bowls had been set. I didn’t focus much on what was collected there because I was taking photos of people and pollinators instead. I did get a nice shot of a Viceroy butterfly and a fun sweat bee that looked like it had been designed by committee.

As we looped back to the barn, we collected a few cross‑traps and a funnel trap that had been baited with ethanol and filled with propylene glycol to preserve insects for three days. We found some long‑horned beetles in those cups but not the variety of specimens we’d hoped for.

Back at the barn, microscopes were busy and curious visitors wandered through. The 24‑hour collecting window was over, but identification work would continue for days and months afterwards.