An invitation to participate in the 2021 City Nature Challenge

Hi Everyone!
This post is to let you all know that 3 areas in Nova Scotia are registered to participate in the 2021 City Nature Challenge (CNC). This international citizen science event started in 2016 and has been a great success in highlighting biodiversity around the world and in engaging local participation.

This year's 4 day 'bioblitz' runs from April 30th to May 3rd (Friday to Monday). Observations may be recorded starting one second after midnight on day one up until one second before midnight on the last day.

This year 23 cities/areas from across Canada are participating. Click here to find an area near you. Note that there are 7 areas in the Maritimes participating. The 3 Nova Scotian entries are CBRM, The Annapolis Valley (Kings and Annapolis Counties), and HRM including Sable Island.

Our objectives in setting up the local CNC events are simple – we want everyone to get outdoors, to explore, to observe nature, to share observations using iNaturalist, and to have fun!

To participate all that you have to do is download the free iNat app or go to iNaturalist.ca and JOIN. Start recording observations today! Get prepared for the start of the CNC on April 30th! Help spread the word!

The global CNC iNat project will display a leader board once the event commences in April - it will be dynamic and will shuffle the order of the cities based on who has made the most observations.

The global CNC will announce results on May 9th, so try to get all your observations uploaded by then! Also, the more observations we can get identified down to species by then, the higher our species number will be!

The identification of observations down to species level is often difficult when the only evidence is a photo. In this iNat project we plan to provide a few journal posts to help the observer take better photos of wild plants. Hopefully the inclusion of multiple views will facilitate identification!

Local CNC organizers and keen iNatters have been brainstorming about places to explore and species to search for during this year's event. Future posts will describe a few data quests. If you or your organization have suggestions please leave a comment below.

Please feel free to brainstorm other ideas, ask questions, etc. in the comments – and definitely add others to this journal post via tagging them in the comments!

Posted on April 15, 2021 07:32 PM by mkkennedy mkkennedy

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