City Nature Challenge 2024: Southern Africa's Journal

The City Nature Challenge is almost here, and we’re so excited to see what we all accomplish together this year! Thank you all for your time, effort, and work that goes into creating this incredible global event – having local organizers for each city is truly what makes the CNC so successful.

Here are some reminders that we often get questions about from CNC participants:
• The City Nature Challenge starts at 12:01 am April 26 YOUR TIME and ends at 11:59 pm April 29 YOUR TIME – So it will start (and end) FIRST in New Zealand and start (and end) LAST in Hawaii
• If you are using iNaturalist as your platform, any observations made within your CNC boundary between April 26 and April 29 will automatically be added to your project – people do not have to join your project to have their observations show up, and people do not need to add their observations to your project to have them show up… they just need to make them and upload them to iNaturalist
• All observations must be MADE between April 26 & April 29, but they can be uploaded later (but must be uploaded by May 6 at 9am YOUR TIME to count)
• Identifications can happen throughout the full City Nature Challenge window, up until your results are pulled (they can keep happening afterwards of course, they just won’t count for the CNC!)
• We will pull your city’s results on 6 May at 9AM your time – so whatever numbers (observations, species, identifiers, observers) are showing in your project then will be your city’s final results

• Other Frequently Asked Questions (and answers!), see https://drive.google.com/file/d/1s2Q7V-5Lq06pmTR0y93w6gEbEpVlYHeK/view?usp=drive_link

• PLEASE help us with data curation by:
o Reminding participants to mark non-wild organisms as captive/cultivated when making their observations, and
o If you see observations from your city that are clearly of captive or cultivated organisms, mark them as not wild in the Data Quality Assessment section of the observation – please remind your identifiers to do the same!

Please let us know about your cool/unusual/rare sightings: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1FAXtuxiz0HpPeXisUlVyRU27hSZbeI5N8ajozqhYPTo/edit?usp=drive_link
• Examples of what we’re looking for:
o New finds! Species that haven’t been recorded in particular areas before.
o Important finds of rare/endangered/threatened species
o Observations that have a great story that go along with them
o Really cool photos
o Fun finds!
• If you share these by Friday, May 3, there is a chance they will be featured in the CNC 2024 results infographic!
Please also share photos of people participating in the 2024 CNC - especially people at CNC events (in-person or virtual):
• Please use the naming convention: City_state/region_country_name of photographer_number.jpg (e.g.: Pondoland_EasternCape_SouthAfrica__AlisonYoung_03.jpg)
• Add to this folder: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1l2myP6P9s55dozcWRqt7c4QXcG_K9vUO?usp=drive_link

Sharing on social media:
• Remember to share about #CityNatureChallenge on social media platforms.
• Tag us on X (formerly Twitter) @citnatchallenge & Instagram @citnatchallenge @inatureZA @sanbi_za @botsocsa

Results: we will email results to you all around 2-3 PM Pacific Time on Monday, 6 May. This will include:
• A results workbook where you can look at all the city results in multiple ways
• An infographic highlighting the global results, including the total number of observations, species, and observers, and interesting finds from around the world

And finally, a reminder that we hope you HAVE FUN during the City Nature Challenge! Get outside, make some observations, meet new people (and maybe some new-to-you species), and enjoy this celebration of nature in and around urban areas!

Thank you everyone for participating in the City Nature Challenge 2024.

We have collected an amazing amount of data
93,008 observations by 2,711 observers.

And the loading is continuing: will we make 100,000 observations for southern Africa?

BUT, now comes the more arduous task: identifying all these observations. This must be completed within a week, so Sunday, May 5 is effective.
During the week, we will streamline the identification process, so please pop onto this umbrella journal and check the latest posts, which will include links to facilitate identification by taxonomic groups, regions, and categories.
It makes sense to pool our resources. We have less than 100 specialists, although lots more very keen and competent people, but we need to strategize for this huge workload.

Lots of people are still loading, so their priority is to get their observations on. Please try and complete it today or tomorrow (remember 1 May is a public holiday, so please work hard on the IDs). When done, they will almost certainly be helping with IDs.

Top priority now is to get identifications from Unknown, and vague, to at least Family level (or genus or species if you recognize it).

The tool we will use is the curation tool. It is really quick and efficient to use, but you will need to know how it works, or perhaps be reminded. Their is a 3 minute tutorial here: please take a moment to review it.:: https://vimeo.com/246153496

OK: here goes: please help us Identify the observations.

Please help with Identifications - Round 1:

Phase 1: Unknowns:

• Unknowns: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/identify?quality_grade=any&iconic_taxa=unknown&project_id=city-nature-challenge-2024-southern-africa&page=5

Phase 2: IDs above family: (You can filter further by adding your preferred group in the "search species" box)

• Plants: help ID plants to family or lower here
• Vertebrates: help ID birds, mammals, herps and fish to family or lower here
• Invertebrates: help ID Insects, Arachnids, Molluscs and Worms to family or lower here
• Fungi : help ID Fungi and Lichens to family or lower here

FAQ:

1. Q? I am a beginner, but would like to help. Where do I begin?
   A! Please start with the Unknowns (Phase 1) and identify them as well as you can.

2. Q? I would like to stick to birds (or etc). What is the best way for me to help?
   A! Start with the Phase (2), click on your group (vertebrates), and in the "search species" box type birds and click to select and process the birds. When you have done all that you can, please go to Phase 1 and look for birds (or etc.) there.
   But remember: not all birds are in the "birds bin" yet for identification - more will come later.

3. Q? I have identified those observations that I can, but there are lots that I cannot, and they get in the way. Is there a way of getting rid of them on my ID tool?
   A! Yes, when you have finished a page, and cannot identify those that remain, click the "Mark All as Reviewed" option, and they wont appear again (unless you select them by clicking the "reviewed" button).

4. Q? What about Research Grade? We are only identifying them at a course level.
   A! We will check identifications to get them to research grade later in the week. Because that is more specialised, we want to clear the Unknowns and Vaguely Identified observations first and get basic identifications for as many observations as we can.

5. Q? Wont we all be identifying the same unknowns?
   A! No - the filters on iNaturalist are really efficient, and once identified they will be removed from the queue. A very few might be identified twice, but that will help confirm them.

6. Q? I am a keen gardener, and I want to help with garden plants. I like them best. How can I help?
   A! Please. They are also important because they attract pollinators, herbivores and other wild organisms in our gardens. Here are the planted observations that need attention. https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/identify?quality_grade=any%2Ccasual&project_id=city-nature-challenge-2024-southern-africa&verifiable=any&photos=true&place_id=any&page=5

7. Q? I dont know a plant on the identifier, but it is unknown. Should I identify it as a plant?
   A! No! Just skip it - leave it for someone else to tackle. Identifications above Order for Invertebrates and Vertebrates are of limited value. If you know it is a fly or beetle (or even in insect), then please ID it as such. But for plants, if you cannot ID it to Family or finer, just skip it. You are wasting valuable time by making such a vague ID as "plant" or "dicot" or "monocot": to be most effective we need finer IDs, so just leave these for others who do recognize them.

Please remember to Fave any exciting observations.

This can be because of an unusual creature, a stunning photograph, an interesting observation, scientific value, because you like it, some interaction, interesting scenery, or whatever reason you like.

Faved observations will be used by cities and organizers to help decide on the Observation of the City Nature Challenge. Other criteria might include the discussion or excitement around an observation, but faves will feature strongly.

Please also remember to mark observations that are planted as captive.

Both Faves and Captive observations can be marked on the bottom of the left hand panel on the Identification Curation Tool.

• You may fave as many observations as you like.
• You may fave your own!
• Feel free to agree with any previous faves, and help vote for the observation of the CNC for your city and more.

Here are the current faves.

They will change as identifiers prowl through the observations, so visit regularly:
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?order_by=votes&place_id=any&project_id=city-nature-challenge-2024-southern-africa&subview=grid&verifiable=any