Gloucester County, Bee City Committee and Clean Community have partnered to hold a BioBlitz that began in August and will run until Sept. 30.

“For those who aren’t sure what a BioBlitz is, it’s basically a fun challenge to catalog data on the living things in our area, within a short period of time,” explained Sherry Kosakowski, Clean Community Coordinator and liaison for Bee City.

The project can be found on the iNaturalist app under Parks for Pollinators 2025: Gloucester County VA. Through the app you can participate in making observations and identifications of local pollinators and plants.

“When you’re participating, you basically just take a picture of a pollinator, it could be a bee, a butterfly, a bat, or a plant, it could be native or any plant that you see,” said Kosakowski. For any observations that participants are unsure of, others that have joined the project on the app can help identify. “I think that is really something special, because you don’t have to sit there and think: what is this?”

So far there have been more than 1,500 observations and over 600 species found through the project. Residents and visitors of Gloucester are all welcome to participate in the challenge.

“This is a great way for Gloucester residents and visitors to see how many species we have in Gloucester of pollinators, plants, different wildlife, just stuff that’s living among us,” she said.

Kosakowski explained that the point of the project is to help residents become better stewards of their local parks and natural spaces, while also learning how to support those areas. It also encourages people to take notice of what is around them, even in their own backyard.

“And now is the best time, everything is so active, and it’s just a really good time to get out there,” she said.