City Nature Challenge 2021: Western NC's Journal

It looks like many of us took advantage of the beautiful weather this past weekend!

There are SO many tremendous observations coming form the challenge this year, and I appreciate everyone's efforts! Let's finish strong with some observations today- even if you are only able to make a few on what is this weekday-workday for many of us.

A few observers in particular have done an amazing job with their individual efforts! A big shout out to jackollis, woodbridge, lenrely, kylezjones13, naturalistjennie and caseygirard for making and submitting over 100 observations to date. As a special thank you, anyone who puts up 100 or more observations during the City Nature Challenge will receive a free North Carolina BioBlitz patch. I'll reach out to each of your on May 10, after the submission deadline, to confirm your mailing address.

Keep up the great work, Team WNC!

Jonathan
On iNaturalist: jmarchal

Congrats to all on a successful Team WNC BioBlitz!

Now it's time to grab those SD cards, scour your phone's picture gallery and ensure you've posted all the organisms you observed between April 30 to May 3 (if you haven't already!). Please also help fellow members of this project by viewing observations taken by others and help with the identification. We currently have more species contributed this year than in 2020, so let's see if we can make that number as high as we can with correct identifications (and, if you see an observation with a single correct identification, go ahead and agree with it so it can reach Research Grade status).

As for prizes, the leaderboard is showing some high achievers! When the results are final (all observations uploaded, all identifications added/refined/corrected) on May 10 I'll announce our 1st, 2nd and 3rd place winners.

And, our number of observers with 100 or more observations has also grown! Big thanks to: jackollis, woodbridge, lenrely, kylezjones13, naturalistjennie and caseygirard, and our new member of the 100-club: catattack! Many of you are within reach of that 100 observations mark, so consider looking over any observations that you did not post if you are close to receive that North Carolina BioBlitz patch.

Thanks again, and I hope to see you outside!

Jonathan
On iNaturlaist: Marchal

Hello, and thank you for participating in the 2021 City Nature Challenge: Western NC!

We surpassed all three benchmarks over our 2020 project, which is fantastic! More people posted more observations of more species this year than any year Western NC has participated- and that's all due to your efforts. Thank you! Internationally we placed 50th for overall observations and 25 for species in the world! Way to go!

In addition, we had several individuals post over 100 observations. A big thanks to those in Club 100! Please send me a private message or email me at jmarchal@ncarboretum.org with your mailing address so we can send a North Carolina BioBlitz patch your way.

I'm also excited to announce the winners of our regional competition. This year's Western NC winners are:

Top Observations:
1st: woodbridge
2nd: jackollis
3rd: caseygirard

Top Species:
1st: lenrely
2nd: kylezjones13
3rd: naturalistjennie

Congratulations to these winners! Also kudos to catattack, our winner of the internal NC Arboretum Staff competition!

Winners: Please let me know if you'd be interested in dropping by the NC Arboretum to pick up your prize package. Alternatively we can mail these to you. Please email me at jmarchal@ncarboretum.org to let me know your preference.

Thanks again! I look forward to another City Nature Challenge in 2022!

Jonathan
on iNaturalist: jmarchal