Hello Denver Metro Area Naturalists,
Thank you again to everyone who participated in the Denver Metro Area's City Nature Challenge 2018 and made it such a success. We hope you've been enjoying the warmer weather, maybe by taking observations in your garden or local park!
We have a final favor to ask of you, if anyone who participated could fill out this participant survey it would be very helpful!
Thank you, and we hope you have a great summer!
After four days of observation and three days of identification, the officials of the City Nature Challenge have tallied the results, and the winner is ……..the San Francisco Bay Area! They managed to win all three categories of Observations, Species, and Observers. You can view the leaderboard here to see how well all the other cities did. The Denver Metro Area held it’s own with an astounding 4,811 observations, 845 unique species, 310 observers, and 181 identifiers! Those numbers put us in 23rd place for Observations, 27th place for Species, and 20th place for Observers. Considering that there were 68 cities competing in the Challenge, that’s an amazing result! Especially for Denver’s first year!
Together all 68 cities collected a total of 424,544 observations, identified 18,115 unique species, and had 16,388 people collecting observations! There was even someone in Antarctica collecting observations of penguins and elephant seals. Denver had some really great observations as well including this grumpy burrowing owl, this muskrat on a mission, this shiny purple tiger beetle, and this zone-tailed hawk that sets a new record of northern-most iNat observation for it's species!
Denver's first ever City Nature Challenge was a huge success because of all of your hard work. Thank you so much to everyone who participated by making observations, identifying species, or just spreading the word. In only a week we were able to greatly increase our knowledge of how nature is faring in the Denver Metro Area, and this data could never be collected without the help of citizen scientists like you! Thanks again, and we look forward to seeing you all at next year’s City Nature Challenge!
Thanks so much to everyone who made observations these past 4 days! If you have photos from the past four days that you haven't uploaded yet, you can still add them from now until May 3! The observation time has ended, but the competition is far from over! With the conclusion of the observation phase of City Nature Challenge, comes the beginning of the identification phase. This part of the competition is just as important because only observations that are identified to the species level will count towards our species total! With over 4,700 observations, we need your help assigning IDs to them all! Even if you are not an expert in identification, you can still help by adding general descriptions (like flowering plants, or beetles, or hawks) to observations that say “Unknown”. Below are brief descriptions for how to Identify Observations on your computer or smartphone.
Computer
Log in to your iNaturalist account, then go here to start identifying! This shows you all the the observations that need IDs. You can filter the observations to show you only plants or birds or bugs, etc. Find an observation that you can identify and click on it. You’ll see a text box below the photo where you can leave a comment or ID the observation. You want to click the “Suggest an Identification” tab. Start typing your ID into the “Species name” bar and select the correct species from the suggestions that appear. Click “Done”.
Smart Phone
Navigate to the Project and select the “Observations” tab from the bar at the top. There is not a way to filter the observations on a phone, so you will see all observations whether they need IDs or not. Look for a species that you can identify and tap that observation. Tap the “speech bubble” icon in the center of the screen below the photo. Tap “Suggest ID” on the bottom right. Start typing your ID into the search bar and select the correct species from the suggestions that appear. Click “Done” or “Save”.
If you have observations from April-27-30 that haven’t uploaded yet, you can still upload them before the end of May 3!
City Nature Challenge starts tomorrow, so get ready to start observing! All observations are good observations, but there are certain things you can do to make your observations great! A great observation doesn't have the most artistic, Instagram-worthy photos; it has photos that make it easy for others to identify what you find. Below are some tips to help you make your observations the best they can be!
Plants
Animals
Bugs
Another way you can make it easier for people to identify your observation is by always including something as the identification, even if it's just "Bird" or "Plant". Identifiers will search for certain categories they have knowledge in and they will use keywords like "Reptiles". But if you leave your ID section blank, they will never find your observation!
Do you wish you could identify the butterflies, birds, and shrubs you find without having to carry three different guide books? If so, then it's your lucky day! We've created iNaturalist Guides for many of the plant, animal and bug species that can be found in the Denver Metro Area. There is a series of 7 Guides, each focused on a different category of plants, animals, or bugs. It's a lot of species because Denver is so diverse, but you can filter them based on attributes such as color and family group.
To locate these Guides on a smartphone, tap the Menu icon in the iNaturalist App then select Guides from the menu. Search for "Denver metro area" and look for the Guides with the green City Nature Challenge logo. Select the Guide you want and start identifying!
Want to get involved with the City Nature Challenge, but don't know where to start? Come to one of our Denver events to learn about iNaturalist, meet other people participating in the Challenge, and contribute your own observations!
Barr Lake State Park BioBlitz
Saturday, April 28 9:00am-3:00pm Barr Lake Nature Center
Come anytime between 9:00am and 3:00pm to help us find and record as much nature as we can in only 6 hours! Staff and volunteers will be there to help you use iNaturalist, make great observations, and identify what you find. Come to the Nature Center and look for the CPW tent!
Chatfield State Park BioBlitz
Saturday, April 28 9:00am-3:00pm Platte River Parking Lot
Come at 9:00am to join volunteer naturalist and bird expert Joey Kellner of the Audubon Society for a guided bird walk, or show up any time between 9:00am and 3:00pm to help us record as much nature as we can before the bioblitz ends! The Platte River Parking Lot is located on the east side of the South Platte River near the concrete restrooms. The park road on the west side is closed for construction, please enter from the east side of the park.
Bluff Lake Nature Center Family Nature Day
Saturday, April 28 8:00am-10:00am 3400 Havana Way, Denver
Come to this family friendly event geared towards kids at the Bluff Lake Nature Center! Kids can borrow Adventure Backpacks filled with the essential gear to record and observe nature, meet some real live raptors and birds handled by Nature's Educators, make their own all-natural bird-feeders at the craft station, and practice using spotting scopes and guide books with bird specialists!
If you can't attend an event, head out on your own, or with a group of friends, to make observations anywhere in the Denver area! Biodiversity is all around us, you just have to look for it!
It's just over a week until City Nature Challenge starts!! We've put together a little guide to help those of you new to iNaturalist. We recommend you play around with the app before the City Nature Challenge so that when that Mountain Bluebird lands on a branch nearby, you'll know exactly what to do!
UPDATE: Skip step 4! You no longer need to add anything for the "Projects" details. Yay, one less thing for you to worry about!
For more information, you can also visit: https://www.inaturalist.org/pages/getting+started
