🥾 Guides: Members of the Longhorn and Central Texas Mycological Society
📅 Date: Friday, April 24, 2026
⏰Time: 6:00 - 9:00 P.M.
📍 Location: UT Hill Country Field Station in Dripping Springs (Address and instructions sent after registration)
🎟 Free with Registration
🥾 Guides: Members of the Longhorn and Central Texas Mycological Society
📅 Date: Friday, April 24, 2026
⏰Time: 6:00 - 9:00 P.M.
📍 Location: UT Hill Country Field Station in Dripping Springs (Address and instructions sent after registration)
🎟 Free with Registration
Join us for an evening of discovery at the newest UT Field Station in the Hill Country—a rare chance for the public to explore this pristine research site and its unique ecosystem.
We'll start with a guided mushroom walk, then after dark use UV flashlights to see the forest glow in surprising colors. You'll help document biodiversity for the annual City Nature Challenge. All ages welcome for this unique blend of nature and community science!
🔎 What’s in store?
6:00 PM: Arrive and check-in
6:30 PM: Guided Walk Starts – Explore the mysterious world of macro fungi and and see how we ID species. After dark we will look for glowing fungi, scorpions, and other nocturnal wonders under ultraviolet light!
🌱 Why join?
Help document biodiversity for the City Nature Challenge
Connect with local ecologists, mycologists, and conservationists
Mushrooms snacks! Enjoy beverages.
Enjoy a community-driven event in a unique urban nature preserve
Come for the science, stay for the adventure! Bring your curiosity, a camera for observations, and a sense of wonder. 🌍✨
About the UV (Blacklight) Night Walk
We will explore the diverse, nocturnal ecosystem with UV flashlights and cameras to look for mushrooms, night pollinators, birds, glowing plants, lichens and more. This walk will highlight fungi’s role in transforming a former dumpsite into a thriving urban forest. Learn how fungi is entangled in the forest helping plants gain water and nutrients, creating the pigments that give flowers their beautiful colors, to helping plants communicate with pollinators. We will have UV flashlights. Guests will learn how to look for, photograph and be community scientists in adding fluorescing organisms to the iNaturalist project. Learn more here about how some plants, mushrooms, lichens and insects have evolved color patterns that are visible in the ultraviolet portion of the electromagnetic light spectrum, which humans cannot see but many insects, birds and animals can see.
Bring your own 365nm UV flashlight or purchase one from us and pick-up at the event.
We tested 5+ UV flashlight brands and we recommend this flashlight. Order online and pick-up at one of our night walks.
Product Features
Handheld UV flashlight
Lightweight, compact size goes anywhere
Built-in rechargeable lithium battery
Charge with included 6-inch Micro USB cord
Can run from a USB power bank (not included)
Product Specifications
ON/OFF button on tailcap
Bulb 3-watt 365nm UV LED
Battery internal rechargeable battery
Dimensions 4" (103mm) long x 0.9" (24mm) width
Weight 3.1 ounces / 90g
Powerful 365nm UV flashlight with high-output LED, patented ZWB2 filter, and dual battery options. Features waterproof IP-65 rating, ergonomic grip, polished reflector, and tail switch for precise control and durability.
Create Your Own BioBlitz
Anyone can participate individually or put together a bioblitz in your neighborhood or own backyard. Choose a park in your neighborhood and then meeting up with outdoor enthusiasts and showing them how to ID flora, fauna and funga using the iNaturalist app! We will be competing against other cities to photograph and observe biodivesity. Download the app and check out this page on how to use.
About City Nature Challenge
Started in 2016 as a competition between Los Angeles and San Francisco, the City Nature Challenge (CNC) has grown into an international event, motivating people around the world to find and document wildlife in their own cities. Run by the Community Science teams at the California Academy of Sciences and the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County (NHM), the CNC is an annual four-day global bioblitz at the end of April, where cities are in a collaboration-meets-friendly-competition to see what can be accomplished when we all work toward a common goal.