Ten Days to the City Nature Challenge!

What is the City Nature Challenge? The CNC, as it is known to veterans, is a friendly competition to document the flora, fauna, and funga of urban areas around the world. It occurs the last weekend of April into May each year. This year, there are 16 “cities” in Texas participating. The challenge consists of two phases. Phase 1 is the observation phase and runs from 28 April to 1 May this year. Participants enter observations into iNaturalist. Phase 2 is the identification phase and runs from 2 May to 7 May this year. This phase is equally important, as we need to identify as many of the observations as we can in the time allotted.

How do I participate? Just go out and make as many iNaturalist observations as you can between 12:00 am on the 28th to 11:59 on the 1st in our six-county “city”: Brazos, Burleson, Grimes, Lee, Madison, and Robertson. The project automatically picks up any observations made in the appropriate area and time frame and adds them to the project. During the identification phase, if you can, identify others’ observations as far as you can. Even if you can’t identify to species, if you can get them to a general group (“bird,” “spider,” “grass”), someone else might be able to take it further.

Do I need to join the project to participate? No. The project automatically collects appropriate observations. We’d love to have you join, so we can see who is “playing.” I will try to post daily journal entries between now and the end of the challenge.

I’ve never used iNaturalist. How does it work? It’s really easy. A beginner’s guide to iNaturalist, with emphasis on the City Nature Challenge, can be found at https://bit.ly/3yCgkhp.

Bruce Neville
Brazos Valley
CNC Coordinator

Posted on April 19, 2023 02:05 AM by bruceneville