On a beautiful summer day, June 25, 2019, I saw the most beautiful “creature” I had ever seen and it was in my garden, "resting" on the tip of a flowering lobelia. It was a dragonfly called the “Widow Skimmer,” so called because the dark wing markings seem like mourning garb. To me, it didn’t seem mournful at all. It was so beautiful and so alluring that it literally took my breath away! I had always been a lover of Nature and being outdoors, but I realized at that moment that although I was SEEING nature, I never really SAW nature.

After my dragonfly "discovery/epiphany," I started to use my phone for more than phone calls and texting. I found the iNaturalist app and discovered bioblitzes and it occurred to me that we live in the perfect area to do bioblitzing! The driftless region* has some of the most unique "creatures" - fauna and flora - in the country and I knew there were local organizations who would like to partner in creating an iNaturalist community project. So in early spring 2021, in the midst of a global pandemic, two non-profit organizations - WisCorps and Mississippi Valley Conservancy along with UW-La Crosse Biology Department - joined my non-profit Strive2Thrive Coulee Region in starting the Driftless Area BioBlitz (DABB). Shortly thereafter the City of La Crosse Parks, Recreation and Forestry Department also joined as a DABB partner, followed the following year by Viterbo University Biology Department.

*According to Wikipedia: The Driftless Area, a region in the American Midwest, comprises southwestern Wisconsin, southeastern Minnesota, northeastern Iowa, and the extreme northwestern corner of Illinois. It was never covered by ice during the last ice age, and therefore lacks glacial deposits, also termed drift.