Friends of Rose Creek log birds, plants for Biodiversity Day

On a gloomy Saturday morning in Pacific Beach, Friends of Rose Creek executive director Karin Zirk awaited participants for the California Biodiversity Day BioBlitz.

As locals trickled in, the Sept. 13 morning’s activities got underway, with cameras out, snapping images of birds and plants.

The morning kicked off behind the Rose Creek Cottage and was one of many activities hosted by Friends of Rose Creek, an organization aimed at preserving the natural habitat and connecting community members.

“We have been around since 2004 and our focus is on what we call the ‘orphan’ stretch of Rose Creek. It runs from Marion Bear Park down to Mission Bay Park. We want to see a healthy environment for people, wildlife, animals and to clean up the water,” Zirk said.

With participants hailing from Pacific Beach and across San Diego County, Friends of Rose Creek’s primary goal is to connect those involved with the natural environment and inform the public on the importance of clean water systems.

“Whatever is in Rose Creek eventually goes into Mission Bay,” Zirk said. “We have around half a dozen core participants and our events can range from a couple people to over 100 who help us clean up the water and surrounding areas.”

For Zirk, informing the public is vital in ensuring the region does not become overlooked. With high traffic roadways running over many portions of the creek, having ample eyes on the area is a beneficial first step. Hand in hand with this is acknowledging that San Diego has immense biodiversity, something that needs protecting.

“San Diego County is one of the most biodiverse counties in the contiguous United States. Within that, we have so many unique microclimates and ecosystems,” Zirk said. “With the birds and other wildlife, they summer in Canada and then come down here. The documentation we are doing at Friends of Rose Creek helps researchers address changes in the climate and the effect on wildlife. We are helping an overall global goal of tracking climate change and wildlife shifts.”

The California Biodiversity Day BioBlitz hosted by the Friends focused heavily on this type of documentation. Using the mobile app iNaturalist, participants snapped images of birds, plants, trees and shrubs along the salt marsh section of the creek and uploaded them to the app. With a global database, scientists and researchers are able to use uploaded images to piece together the puzzle that is the climate crisis, using them to analyze and assess the current state of microregions across the world.

“Salt marshes are one of the most endangered habitats in the state,” Zirk said. “We love to take advantage of statewide events like the California Biodiversity Day, to bring attention to the diminishing habitat. Taking and uploading these images is our way of documenting what is in and around the salt marsh, especially as the city is working through their plans to restore more of the salt marsh eventually.”

California Biodiversity Day, celebrated Sept. 6-14, served as a chance for locals in any corner of the state to get involved, take images and upload them to iNaturalist for scientific and research use. While the app is available and encouraged year-round, the week was a spotlight on the importance of joint effort when conserving the environment, Zirk said.

“We have so many critical habitats and as the climate crisis accelerates, we need to look at what is happening globally and statewide,” she said. “As researchers are trying to model what is going on, they do not have time to go out to hundreds of spots and study the wildlife and habitat of each spot. iNaturalist helps us become community scientists and gather data that allows the more sophisticated researchers to analyze.

“You can capture valuable information anywhere in the county,”  she said. “Anyone with a camera or smartphone can help gather data and be part of the solution.”

During Biodiversity Day, participants walked around the edges of Rose Creek and along the Garnet bridge, observing and snapping pictures along the way.

“The end goal is to automatically be able to determine what is blooming when, and analyze how things are changing over time,” said participant Andre Lenowich.

Looking ahead, Friends of Rose Creek will continue hosting events for the public to get involved. Those in October include a native plant garden work party from 9 to 11 a.m. Saturday, Oct. 11 and a Rose Creek habitat restoration from 9 a.m. to noon Friday, Oct. 17. The next Friends meeting, open to all, will be 6 to 8 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 5.

For details on Friends of Rose Creek and upcoming events visit saverosecreek.org. For California Biodiversity Day related events, visit tinyurl.com/CA-BioBlitz.