What are the City Nature Challenge and iNaturalist?
This post is for those who are new to the City Nature Challenge or new to iNaturalist. As always, if you have any questions, feel free to ask them in the comments.
City Nature Challenge
The City Nature Challenge, or CNC, started as a friendly competition between the cities of Los Angeles and San Francisco, back in 2016; that’s why it’s called the City Nature Challenge. This year, there are well over 400 “cities” or regions participating world-wide. In Massachusetts, in addition to the Western Mass CNC, there are the long-established Boston Area CNC and the brand-new Providence Area CNC (which includes part of southeastern Massachusetts). You certainly don’t have to make observations in urban areas if you don’t want to, but if you happen to live in a city, you might well be amazed at what you can find there.
Naturalists in New England and other northern regions often wonder why the CNC takes place so early in the spring. Well, because it’s a global event, there’s no perfect time that suits everyone everywhere – at least we won’t be tramping through deep snow or sweltering in 90F heat or even beset by too many black flies or mosquitoes the last weekend in April! (There will be ticks, however, just to warn you.)
Unlike traditional bioblitzes, the aim of the CNC is not just to observe the most species possible in each region. The aim is actually to connect the most people with the natural world in their region. So, we are aiming to get lots of observers out in western Mass, each making lots of observations, and collectively racking up lots of species. Thus, if you’re out in the field with other CNC participants, each person should be making an observation of each species found, rather than letting one person make all the observations.
For the Western Mass CNC, all types of observations on iNaturalist in our region, within the four-day CNC period, are included: Research Grade, Needs ID, and Casual.
iNaturalist
If you are new to iNaturalist, we strongly recommend you practice using it before the CNC. There’s a bit of a learning curve to iNat when you first begin and we want you to have fun during the CNC and not be frustrated by the app or the website.
Start by reading through the Getting Started pages. Watch a video or two. Attend an in-person iNaturalist training in Amherst on April 15th. Explore the website a bit; for example, take a look at these: an observation, a taxon page, and a forum topic. Click around a bit; you won’t break anything. Download the app (if you’re going to use your phone) or grab your camera, go outside, and make your first observation. Remember, if you get confused at any point, come back here and ask a question in the comments. We’ll answer as soon as we’re able.
A few major points to remember about iNaturalist observations:
• Each observation should focus on one type of organism. You can include several photos in an observation (for example, a leaf, a bud, and an acorn of an oak tree), but different species should go in different observations.
• iNaturalist is primarily for wild organisms, so please don’t add photos of captive or cultivated organisms like your pets or your house or garden plants (no photos of humans, either). Sometimes, it can be hard to tell if a plant is wild or cultivated, particularly in a park. Some hints: If the plant is a tree or shrub with mulch around it, it’s cultivated. If there are several big trees of the same species in a straight line paralleling a road or walkway, they were planted there. If you do happen to upload an observation of a captive or cultivated organism, please mark it as Not Wild in the app or on the website.
• Do remember to add an identification to each of your observations as you upload them. It’s completely fine if you don’t know the name of the snail or flower or mushroom you observed; just identify them as Animals or Plants or Fungi if that’s as much as you know. Using iNaturalist will help you learn the names over time.
• Do come back to the website a day or two after you’ve uploaded observations and see if anyone has added or confirmed an identification, or maybe added a question or comment. Sometimes, it can take weeks or months or even years to get a species-level ID from someone else, especially if you’ve uploaded something hard to identify, like a beetle or a lichen. Many times, you’ll need to learn what photos to take to make it possible for someone else to identify your observation. For example, while a few trees can be identified just from a photo of the bark, it is much easier to ID all trees if you add a photo of the leaves (look for a dead leaf on the ground) or the buds or flowers or fruits.
• Remember that the people who do identifications on iNaturalist are virtually all volunteers. Even the few paid iNat staff aren’t paid to make IDs. So, be nice to the identifiers by making sure your photos aren’t too blurry, that you give each of your observations an initial ID, and that you answer any questions or respond to comments reasonably quickly (especially during the CNC!).
Finally, using iNaturalist will help you see even familiar everyday landscapes in new ways, so it is very much worth your time learning how to use it. If you’re a birder, you’ll start noticing dragonflies and grasshoppers. If you’re a wildflower enthusiast, you’ll start noticing galls and leafminers. If you thrill to the sounds of Wood Frogs and Spring Peepers in spring (who doesn’t?), you’ll start noticing fairy shrimp and maybe even Spotted Turtles in the vernal pools. People have uploaded observations of almost 9,000 species from western Massachusetts over the years; we hope you will find many of them using iNaturalist during the Western Mass City Nature Challenge!
---Lynn Harper and Melanie Radik, co-organizers
