Niagara College BioBlitz

Spend the day with us identifying plants and animal species at the Daniel J. Patterson campus in Niagara-on-the-Lake. If you are interested in hosting your own bioblitz, we have created a guide for both a Virtual Bioblitz and an in-person one!

Two community members look through binoculars at the sky

What’s a BioBlitz?

Expert scientists lead citizen scientists like yourself on hikes around the Niagara-on-the-Lake property while identifying and cataloging the bugs, birds, amphibians, mammals, and plants.

NC BioBlitzes are scheduled at different times of the year. Check the events calendar to see if one is coming up!

10th Annual Spring BioBlitz

Niagara College is pleased to announce that we are hosting our 10th Annual Spring BioBlitz at our Niagara-on-the-Lake Campus on Saturday April 12th, 2025 from 8 a.m. – 4 p.m.

A BioBlitz is an event that completes an intense biological survey of a specified area. The event is volunteer-based and involves scientists, community members and amateur enthusiasts, coming together with the common goal of identifying as many species as possible within the specified time frame. BioBlitz events are increasing in popularity, as they promote citizen science, engage the public and produce species inventories. These events are intended to provide a ‘snap shot’ of the species diversity found in a location and the data collected helps create a baseline for researchers and the local community to monitor biodiversity over time. With anthropogenic factors (such as development, pollution and climate change) affecting species and their habitat, BioBlitz events conducted by community scientists are needed more than ever.

Please note: we would appreciate if you left your pets at home during the event – we don’t want to scare off any potential species!

How to Participate

Whether you are a participant or an expert, please fill out the appropriate registration form below. We are asking participants to register to help us order the proper amount of food so everyone can enjoy in the free refreshments.

Participant Registration

As an NC BioBlitz 2025 participant feel free to arrive whenever you want and stay for as long as you like! Please fill out the registration form below.

Name(Required)
NC students: please provide your student e-mail address.
Are you planning on attending the event close to lunch time?
We need to know numbers to ensure we are ordering the appropriate amount of food.
Please specify.
Expert Registration

As an NC BioBlitz 2025 expert, your role will be to lead hikes around our NOTL campus throughout the event day, to assist citizen scientists in identifying species within your area of expertise. Any species identified will be recorded on the NC BioBlitz Data Sheets provided and will contribute to the college’s Biodiversity Inventory. If you consider yourself an expert, but don’t feel comfortable leading a hike, please register as a participant.

Thank you for taking the time to complete the registration form. The questions are designed to gather your registration and information on your area of expertise as well as what time(s) you will be available on the BioBlitz event day. The questions should take no longer than 10 minutes of your time. Please note, we are only registering individuals, not groups or organizations. We would like to know exactly who is coming!

Name(Required)
Please specify.
Are you planning on attending the event close to lunch time? We need to know numbers to ensure we are ordering the appropriate amount of food
Please specify.

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Species On-Campus

Below are some of the species that we’ve found on-campus. To see the full biodivsity inventory on iNaturalist click here: Niagara College Biodiversity Inventory.

We never stop bioblitzing!

Completing a BioBlitz does not mean the species count is over. We are cataloguing new species that we find on our campus every day! Our species list is a living document that is constantly being updated.

Contribute to our species inventory
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