City Nature Challenge 2021: Ōtautahi/Christchurch's Journal

Ōtautahi iNaturalists covered a lot of ground (and water) on Saturday! Having a quick look through the observations, it’s exciting to see a terrific diversity of observations from a variety of habitat types.

As of about 11:00PM, we've tallied 2851 observations of 837 species from 81 observers, with identifications being provided by 119 iNaturalist.nz users - a solid start! @jennysaito continues to top the observation and species leaderboards for Christchurch, with @yukisaito and @yuyusaito well up in the rankings as well! The top species observed is now Dolomedes minor, thanks in large part to @wjiang’s efforts.

So many interesting observations today. A few of the highlights for me were the range of lichens and fungi (including another "Devil’s Fingers” (@tyler_mcbeth), which I still think are creepy); a teeny-tiny crab spider (@daisyzebra); a stylish planarian (@bythepark); and an also-stylish fluffy kererū butt (@fergus). Finally, two from @timcurran: a Māori octopus, and a hairy seaweed crab. Today I learned that hairy seaweed crabs exist, and I’m a happier person for it.

With today’s hard work we’ve nearly caught up to Wellington in both number of observations and species. Keep it up!

Hi, everyone-

@kiwifergus has pulled together lists of spider and bird species that have been seen before in Christchurch, but haven't been recorded in this year's City Nature Challenge so far (thanks, Mark!!!). Is there something here that you can find to boost our species tally?

Another busy day for Ōtautahi iNaturalists today, and we’re still keeping close to Pōneke/Wellington City in both the observation and species tallies. As of about 11:00PM, we've tallied 4690 observations of 1116 species from 122 observers, with identifications being provided by 150 iNaturalist.nz users.

The top four species span a range of taxonomic groups, and observations of each species come from a range of places. The number one species observed as of tonight is the cabbage tree with 39 observations. Second is Dolomedes minor (36 observations), followed by fantails (26 observations) and fly agaric (24 observations).

With one day left to go for observations, you may be wondering if there’s something obvious we’ve overlooked so far. @kiwifergus has built handy lists for some taxonomic groups that highlight which species have been observed at least once here in the past, but have not yet been observed during the 2021 City Nature Challenge. He’s posted links to these lists - which will update as we find more species - in his iNaturalist user journal.

Also handy to keep in mind as we head into the final day: remember we have an additional week to get observations uploaded and identified. As long as the observation was made/photograph was taken/recording recorded/sample collected before 11:59PM on Monday night, it can be included in our tally. So if you are wondering whether it’s better to spend your time tomorrow uploading your current observations or making more of them, the answer is: make more! : )

Woo-hoo, we pulled ahead of Wellington! : )

It's still pretty close, but what a great final day. As of 11:40PM we're on 6562 observations of 1396 species made by 140 observers, with 179 iNaturalist.nz users helping with identifications.

Great effort everyone! We will pull together a news-ier update tomorrow, and provide some additional tips for the upload and ID phase.

While you're kicking back and relaxing tomorrow, you may want to check out the global City Nature Challenge board to see what's happening around the rest of the world. We here in New Zealand are the first to start and finish the event, and all the other participating cities will be rolling across the line over the next 24 hours. Will the global iNaturalist community hit 1,000,000 observations fo this year's Challenge? At the moment the grant total is over 784,000 observations and counting....

I know I promised a newsier update today, but… I need to sleep! Instead, please enjoy this friendly chonk/kererū, observed by @gill-b. Isn’t he handsome?

Also handsome in a way you never thought possible: the Sexy Pavement Lichen! I was waiting for one of these to turn up in this year’s results: thanks, @meurkc!

More observations and identifications are continuing to roll in from around Aotearoa. Ōtautahi and Pōneke/Wellington City remain close tonight, with about 7000 observations of about 1300 species for each city. Overall, more than 17,500 observations have been uploaded from across Aotearoa’s participating cities, with 2627 species spotted by 546 observers, and identified by 365 identifiers. The global total has topped 1,000,000 observations!

The upload and identification period runs through May 9, and is an important part of the overall event. Getting organisms identified makes all of the wonderful data we’ve collected even more useful. If there is a group of organisms you’re confident identifying, please jump online and help out (you can of course help with ID’s from anywhere in New Zealand, or indeed the world)! If you’re not comfortable making species identifications, you can help the rest of the iNaturalist community by putting in a very general ID (e.g. putting in the ID for “plants” or “spiders”). With so many observations being uploaded all at once, many identifiers will use a filter to find the taxonomic groups they are most familiar with. You can also help by tagging observations as captive/cultivated where appropriate.

Finally, you can help by coming along to our Identification Party! On Sunday the 9th from 10:30 until 5, drop in to Tūranga if you would like to join in. This is an informal social event, and you’re welcome to come for as long or short as you’d like. We’ll be parked in Auaha Hīhī - Spark Place, at the east end of the ground floor. Bring a device and take advantage of the library’s free wifi!

Kia ora everyone,

By the end of today, Sunday, the totals will be locked in for this year's City Nature Challenge. Ōtautahi/Christchurch is doing well. We're ahead in NZ and Australia and currently 24th in the world for observations and 21st in the world for species. That's in comparison to some of the world's largest cities. You can watch all the global action here, with more than 1.2 million species and counting(!).

It's not over yet in Ōtautahi. There are still plenty of observations to identify, and you've got until the end of the day to upload any last observations you made during the challenge weekend.

You can see all of the wild observations still requiring identifications here: https://inaturalist.nz/observations/identify?project_id=93405

Importantly, that page by default doesn't show the planted and captive things, and we've got a lot of great observations of the species we plant and grow in the city. You can identify those here: https://inaturalist.nz/observations/identify?quality_grade=casual&project_id=93405&captive=true

If you're in the centre of Christchurch today, we've got a room on the ground floor of Tūranga, the central library, where we're identifying and uploading. Stop on by and say kia ora and join in the fun.

Also, we'll have a celebration of all the amazing City Nature Challenge observations and observers from Ōtautahi/Christchurch at 6 pm on Tuesday at Tūranga. Everyone is welcome!