City Nature Challenge 2019's Journal

First off, another huge THANK YOU to everyone who took part in the City Nature Challenge this year! From organizing cities to organizing events to making observations to IDing observations to making sure iNaturalist keeps running, everyone who plays a role is hugely important to the success of the CNC.

Enjoy this infographic below summarizing some results, and scroll beyond it to see some amazing observations from around the world and some other interesting results! And leave us a note in the comments letting us know your favorite find or favorite moment of the City Nature Challenge - we'd love to hear them!
Thanks!
-Alison (@kestrel) & Lila (@lhiggins), CNC co-organizers

Highlights from around the world include:
The endangered Indo-Pacific Humpback dolphin in Hong Kong,
Andean condors (the largest flying bird in the world) circling the mountains of Bolivia,
the first-ever iNaturalist observation of a beautiful orchid in Colombia,
a swallow-tailed kite dropping an iguana mid-air in Miami,
an African leopard in Cape Town,
festive tiger beetles in Oklahoma,
and African penguins walking the beach.
The first-time participation of cities around the world, especially in areas that were less well-documented on iNaturalist prior to the Challenge, have added species that have never been recorded in the platform’s history.

Some other interesting results:
Tena had the most observations, species, and observers for the "smallest cities" both in terms of population and area... and Angel R. Cabada, Port Aransas, Luxembourg, Leicester, and Duluth are all represented in the top three as well for the two "small cities" categories.

In just the 4 days of the City Nature Challenge...
Tena increased its total number of observations on iNaturalist by 2529%, Leicester by 1618%, and Port Harcourt by 923%
La Paz added 2273 species to its place on iNaturalist, followed by Tena with 2272 and Klang Valley with 1707
Number of observers in Tena increased by 269%, by 216% in Port Harcourt, and by 158% in La Paz.

And for cities who participated in the 2018 CNC...
Buenos Aires had a 1386% increase in observations this year, followed by Hermosillo at 502% and Prague at 380%
Buenos Aires found 496% more species this year, then El Paso at 161% and Prague at 128%
Prague had the biggest % increase in observers at 631%, then Buenos Aires at 483%, and Boulder at 279%

As we're heading into the home stretch of the City Nature Challenge, we (Alison Young @kestrel, and Lila Higgins @lhiggins - the two lead organizers of the CNC) want to give huge THANK YOU to all of you taking part! Thank you to all of the local organizers of the CNC who got the word out, held events, and worked hard to make the CNC happen in their cities. Thank you to all of you who are out there documenting your local nature - in all types of weather! - to help your city in the CNC and to take part in this international event. Thank you to all of you working on identifying all the observations coming in for the CNC - we know it's a literal flood of observations and we appreciate everyone taking the time to help get correct IDs on them. And of course a big thank you to the iNaturalist team for keeping iNat up and running as we more than double their usual activity!

And remember that you can see the full leaderboard on the City Nature Challenge website, since not all cities are using iNaturalist as their platform.

So what's next? Well, keep making observations - you have until 11:59pm your time on Monday April 29 to take your photos! After that, we have about a week to get all observations uploaded, and most importantly - identified! You can click here to see all the observations made for the CNC that still need identification help - use the filters on that page to look at specific groups of organisms (e.g., plants, birds, reptiles, fungi, etc.) and to look at observations from particular locations (e.g., New York City, Hong Kong, Texas, United Kingdom, etc.)

Whatever your city's stats are as of 9:00am your local time on Monday May 6 will be considered the final stats for your city. We'll compile all the results and will announce them in the afternoon (Pacific time) on Monday, May 6. We'll be looking at the results in many different ways - not just total numbers - so check back here to see the full results breakdown!