Wow. We had a huge increase in observations and species over night: 2000 new observations and 344 more species. We are now only one participant short of last year. But we are still 50 people short of our best year.
Time for making observations for the 2022 City Nature Challenge is over. We have plenty of time to finish uploading (May 8th), but don’t wait till the last minute. It takes time to get everything identified, especially when you photograph less popular species like moths and spiders. You don’t have to figure out all the species yourself. iNaturalist’s artificial intelligence will help you identify your observations, but if you aren’t sure, don’t guess. Better to leave your ID as genus or family and let someone else narrow it down. iNaturalist will sometimes suggest look alike species from the wrong continent. It usually does birds and butterflies well and experts will quickly confirm or correct IDs of popular species.
You don't have to do anything special to participate. You can join the group, but as long as you took photos between Friday and Monday, uploading them to iNaturalist automatically adds them to the challenge.
Mothing improved a bit last night, but not nearly as good as the first night of the challenge. We got a few more new species on the sheet and around the garden. I am now up to 49 arachnids. There is a good chance once I finish uploading and things get identified, I will reach 50! I also got three more new insect species in the few minutes after midnight that don’t count. Maybe someone else will have got them before the cut off time.
iNaturalist is a great way to learn about nature. I wouldn't know a fraction of the stuff I do about spiders and moths without it. Everything counts for this challenge: Birds, Fungi, Fish, Butterflies, Plants, etc.
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