StayiNatHome: it's global City Nature Challenge time!

All across the world, for four days from Friday 24 April to Monday 27 April, people in cities around the world will be (carefully) getting outside to do a stock take of the world's urban biodiversity. It's the global City Nature Challenge with iNaturalist.

This year it's (sadly) a big opportunity for us all to contribute to a vision of what urban nature is like when our cities are not filled with the hustle and bustle of cars and people. This year's City Nature Challenge is about working together to document the nature in our cities while we keep our communities safe by staying in our bubbles.

In last year's City Nature Challenge observers around the world came within a whisker of making a million observations in just four days, and found over 32,000 species. Yes, wow!

This year we'll all be focusing closer to home than our big city parks and wild areas. That's not a problem though as you'll find a surprising number of species living in and around your home and garden. (My family is up to 439 species now in our home and garden.)

New Zealand has been #StayiNatHome for over four weeks now, and together we've documented an astounding amount of nature in New Zealand's homes and gardens and neighbourhoods. Over this City Nature Challenge long weekend, it's your chance to fill in all the gaps.

How many species can you find in your home and garden in just four days?

How many of your friends and neighbours can you get outside to spend some quality time with nature using the iNaturalist app?

Revisit your favourite species and hunt for new species you've not observed before. There are lots of things to try, and we'll highlight some over the long weekend.

You can look under pot plant pots and bricks, or look on plants for distinctive damage from herbivorous insects. Get a flat tray (eg oven tray) and see what invertebrates you can shake out of branches. You can turn on your outside light after dark and see what moths and other insects come in. You can look for wild seedlings in your garden, or take time to photograph your garden's lichens. Or take 20 minutes to see how many bird species you can see and hear from your garden. There are lots of species to find and lots of ways to find them.

We'll be posting more over the City Nature Challenge weekend. For now, spread the word and let us see (and hear) what's in your home and garden.

Two weeks ago @ecoman took a break to shake some branches in his garden in Lincoln to look for insects. He was rewarded with this large, elegant native stick insect. It's worth taking a moment to click through to the observation and admire it at full magnification.

Posted on April 23, 2020 10:29 AM by jon_sullivan