City Nature Challenge 2022: San Francisco Bay Area's Journal

May 10, 2022

Thanks so much SF Bay Area!

What a great CNC! Always so impressed with how our community shows up for the City Nature Challenge: with events, helping to get the word out, getting outside and documenting our local biodiversity, helping with identifications, traveling to those harder-to-reach spots to find unique species, looking for blank spots on the map to go make last-minute observations – no matter if you made 1 observation or 100 observations (or 767 observations – looking at you, @gyrrlfalcon), 1 identification or 100 identifications (or 2,232 – OMG @catchang!), your support and enthusiasm for the CNC is so appreciated. And out of 445 cities, we had the 3rd highest number of observers (and in the top 10 for both observations and species).

Since not every city uses iNaturalist for the CNC, we wanted to make sure to share the full collective results with all of you (visit the umbrella project journal to see the global infographic):
Total # of observations: 1,694,877
Total # of observers: 67,220
Total # of species documented: 50,176+, including more than 2,244 rare/endangered/threatened species
Most observed species: Common Dandelion (Taraxacum officinale)
Number of participating countries: 47
Number of participating cities: 445

Here in the Bay Area, our final results were:
Total # of observations: 31,227
Total # of observers: 2085
Total # of species documented: 3008
Most observed species: Ithuriel's Spear (Triteleia laxa) (is this the first year it hasn't been California Poppy?!)

Over the 7 years we've participated in the City Nature Challenge, a total of 9,536 people have made 214,516 observations of 6,030 species, and 4,802 people have helped to add identifications to those observations! [:mind blown emoji:]

Here's a little infographic highlighting our results this year and some fun finds from throughout the Bay Area:

Thanks everyone! Mark your calendars for next year: April 28 - May 1!

Posted on May 10, 2022 01:04 AM by kestrel kestrel | 5 comments | Leave a comment

May 3, 2022

So much fun! Now can you help with identifications?

Hi SF Bay Area CNC friends!

I hope you all had a wonderful time out exploring nature over the past four days – perfect weather, lots of fun events, most places actually still green – what more could we ask for??

Now that the observation period of the CNC is done, we have until 9AM Monday, May 9 to do two main things:

  1. Get all your observations from April 29 - May 2 uploaded; and
  2. Work on identifying all the observations!

If you're a veteran identifier then head on over to the Identify tool to see all the SF Bay Area CNC observations that are not yet to Research Grade.

If you haven't yet jumped into the identifying side of iNaturalist, please know that anyone can help with identifications! You don't have to be an expert, one great place to start is to look at all the observations that were uploaded with no ID at all (so they're listed as "unknown"), and help by adding even high-level IDs, like "Plants" or "Insects" or "Birds" – whatever level you feel confident to ID to (e.g., you could do "grasses" instead of "plants" or "beetles" instead of "insects" if you feel confident in doing so!). That way the folks who know how to ID those particular taxa can find them faster! Click here to see all the SF Bay Area CNC observations currently listed as "Unknown".

And as you're working on identifications, if you happen across an observation that is clearly of a non-wild organism (e.g., fish in an aquarium, potted plants, etc.), help us clean up the data by marking them as Captive/Cultivated.

If you'd like to hang out (virtually) with some other local folks while working on identifications, local naturalist extraordinaire Trent Pearce (@leftcoastnaturalist) is hosting an identification party on Zoom TONIGHT (Tuesday, May 3) at 6PM: Click here to join the Zoom at 6PM tonight!

ALSO: if you happen to come across a really cool observation (or if you made one yourself), please share it here in the comments section! We're always looking for interesting CNC observations to highlight in the results and to the press, so we'd love your help in curating those – it could be something rare, a new record, an interesting interaction, a great photo, or anything that makes you think it's an extraordinary observation!

Posted on May 3, 2022 03:42 PM by kestrel kestrel | 7 comments | Leave a comment

April 26, 2022

City Nature Challenge starts on Friday!

The world's biggest global biodiversity documenting event starts this week! This year there are 450 cities participating across 45 countries, making it the biggest CNC yet!

Here in the Bay Area, we've been lucky to get some recent late-season rains which should make this year's CNC particularly good. We hope you have a chance to get outside and help document the incredible nature we have in our region.

Taking part in the CNC is easy! Just use iNaturalist to make and share observations of wild plants and animals (and fungi and algae and bacteria...) in any of the nine Bay Area counties between April 29 and May 2, 2022. Your observations will automatically be added to our SF Bay Area CNC project. During the May 3-8 time frame, help us identify the observations that were made. Results will be announced on Monday, May 9.

You can go out and make observations on your own, with your friends and family, or participate in one of the 20+ events that are being held in the Bay Area. If you go to an event, you might have a chance to pick up this year's SF Bay Area CNC sticker too!

@gyrrlfalcon @hellabeenerd @chilipossum @cae1 @sec_research @emilyearthquake @damontighe @hikingboots_and_pearls @alexis_amphibian @julie_sf @idbirds @kdff @catchang
@merav @christinnew @mazer @ocean_beach_goth @lgottlieb @sarah-mae @dloarie @arlenedevitt @hasfitz5 @leftcoastnaturalist @jlmartin @ymjcal @anudibranchmom
@dpom @leslie_flint @lenaz @nancyasquith @newtpatrol @barry_thomson @charadrius @nancyfox @ouzel @virusmanbob @jenniferlchandler @bilgepump100 @lglevanik
@graysquirrel @lorri-gong @avocat @kevinhintsa @morgancantrell @marymchurchill @chris_nelson @chyroptera @chrisalises @calloohcallay @wooac @onlyconnect @garth_harwood
@hfabian @edwardrooks @metsa @dlevitis @gina-barton @mary-nguyen @wildmarin @marivillasol @zaf2103 @ahaislip @lithostrotionella @csuebpollinators @rebeccafay
@truthseqr @robberfly @wildmare64 @mrchasse @greengras2000 @suzm @bluevalhalla @goflowers @mpkw @alan_rockefeller @passiflora4 @rosemary_h @joseph103
@sea-kangaroo @fleist @direbecca @pholroyd @geodani @hilarystaples @wild-by-nature-db @kgerner @naturesarchive @ulysses20 @kschnei @jacobgorneau @howardfriedman1
@ross2 @jmaughn @adrained @temminicki @dgreenberger @ramblinghobbit @hydrocycler @ericsimons @marinmaverick @icosahedron @browntrekker @rljcal @isaac_krone
@joergmlpts @cjs041 @californiarowan @chloe_and_trevor @danieldas @elliotgreiner @nelruzam @al_kordesch @richardwasson @radrat @sciencebabe @silveradojim @caenvsci

Posted on April 26, 2022 08:22 PM by kestrel kestrel | 13 comments | Leave a comment

April 1, 2022

Events for the San Francisco Bay Area City Nature Challenge!

Join an event for the City Nature Challenge to learn more our local species, get hands-on help using iNaturalist, and meet other people interested in nature! Be sure to click on the links to learn more and to register if needed. All events are in-person unless noted and will be hosted in English unless noted.

Be sure to check back here to see more events being held in the Bay Area for the 2022 City Nature Challenge! We will add them as they are confirmed.

Pre-CNC Events

Friday, April 29

Saturday, April 30

Sunday, May 1

Monday, May 2

Post-CNC Identification Events

Posted on April 1, 2022 07:43 PM by kestrel kestrel | 2 comments | Leave a comment

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