It’s only a week and a few hours till the City Nature Challenge starts and I’m getting excited! Now, I’d be even more excited if the sky would stop spitting snow here today in central Massachusetts in the US, but it’s still definitely spring and I am looking forward to having an excuse to spend four solid days being more obsessed than usual (which is saying something) to find and observe every species I can. How about you?
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Me too! I keep trying to convince folks around me to get excited, but they just say “sounds fun” and walk away. I am excited for selfish reasons. Right now I have almost three-quarters of the observations from my county. If more people would observe around here, then I would have better “seen nearby” suggestions to help me figure out what I am looking at. I would also have the fun of looking through more cool observations of things nearby that I don’t know to look for or can’t capture in a photo with my skill and equipment. Although a lot is still dormant around here, our spring wildflowers tend to be distinctive and easier to identify than a lot of our later plants. We also are starting to get more birds pass through and the frogs, toads, bees, etc are beginning to wake up and come out.
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I’m definitely excited, though a little put off by the fact my local county was made into it’s own CNC instead of included in the broader state-region it should be included in; this seems to be limiting the number of participants.
EDIT: actually I just checked at it’s been re-included. Stoked either way!
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It will be the first challenge I have participated in on iNat so I’m looking forward to it. Sadly it looks like it will be raining next week but at this point I’ll hike in the rain if it means I can upload some observations. If it rains, I’ll probably start looking at trees more than I usually do and will likely find some new first plant species. If it does not, I’ll try going to some new hiking trails I have never been to and find some invertebrates to increase the species diversity.
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It’s my second challenge and second I’m not being able to participate in a city, spending a day in a plane and going to hotel. I’m quite excited about own findings though and don’t realise how soon it is!
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Всё упирается в погоду. Плюс ещё надо немного подумать о маршрутах. Всё же привязка к городской черте ограничивает варианты.
Unfortunately, my city hasn’t participated in it. +It’s freaking hot here right now, average temp during day is around 35-40°c. So it’s pretty hard for me…
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https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/city-nature-challenge-2021-global-project - если ваш город не участвует, но желание есть - то вам сюда.
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Thank you for sharing this, but the second problem…
Nevermind, I’ll try to add as many obs as I can. Hope I find at least some cool critters in my home!
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Hint - if it rains, use a blacklight (something that emits utraviolet light in the 360 to 400nm range) plugged into a porch light fixture under a canopy (or umbrella) and rig up a white cloth or sheet on the wall adjacent, in the evenings and make some bug / beetle / moth / diptera (etc) observations. You might be surprised how many invertebrates don’t mind a spot or two of the wet stuff.
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This is an incredibly simple but useful suggestion! Thank you!!!
I was wondering when this was going to start! Usually I get emails, see posts on FB, and of course notifications on here! I don’t even see a post about it on the iNat page on FB! And for some reason I didn’t see the posts on the “Houston-Galveston City Nature Challenge Team” FB page! Argh. I am ready!!! <3
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Great idea about the blacklight! Can’t wait to try it!
And yes! I am very excited…my mum, who is a self taught botanist/naturalist will be helping me again.
This year we are going to try to hit some of the under represented areas in our district. It is very addictive and I get a little competitive when I see my name rising on the leaderboard!
I feel like I should apologize i advance for the terrible quality pictures that I will be uploading; I heard that there is a little bit of a local competition among the natural areas people for most observations. So my “I can’t upload that bar” is going to be low.
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As long as it’s better than some undefined grey blob that should be fine I’d say.
I’m having fun already. 7 species so far without even having left home, including 1 I’ve never got a shot of before.
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Had been looking forward to it all week! Even pulled back the leaves and put markers among the emerging plants to remind me of ones to photograph. Disappointed - it’s raining too hard, and too cold for me to go out this morning. Will keep watching!
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