City Nature Challenge 2024: Ōtautahi/Christchurch's Journal

Woot! We just past the city's previous record number of observations, from the big 2019 CNC, and there's still three days of identifying and uploading to go.

https://inaturalist.nz/projects/city-nature-challenge-otautahi-christchurch-all-years

We've got to identify or upload 148 more species to top our species tally from 2019, and then 2024 will without doubt be Ōtautahi's biggest City Nature Challenge event ever. Well to everyone involved!

If you want more motivation to spend those extra hours identifying, or uploading your remaining photos, then here's Wellington, hot on our heels on #observations and still slightly ahead on #species:

https://inaturalist.nz/projects/city-nature-challenge-2024-te-upoko-o-te-ika-wellington

Also, here's the Eurasia-Africa-Oceania part of the global competition, where Ōtautahi is currently #9 in observations, just behind Prague, and #14 in species, with a bunch of cities ahead of us with about the same species tally.

https://inaturalist.nz/projects/city-nature-challenge-2024-eurasia-africa-oceania

So, keep on adding to our knowledge of the biodiversity of Christchurch and let's see how high we can take this.

:-)

One of the outcomes of the City Nature Challenge that people asked for was the chance to bring the online iNaturalist NZ community together IRL.

The City Nature Challenge results night is that opportunity!

Time & location: Tuesday 7 May TSB Space | Tautoru, Level 1, Tūranga, 6pm – 7.30pm

Come celebrate our success with the team behind the City Nature Challenge and find out… did we beat Wellington?

We invite our local online community of iNaturalists to get together in person, connect and network with like-minded nature lovers.

The results of the Global Challenge will be shared as well as spotlighting on our local heroes.

We have been provided some amazing prizes by our sponsors, which will be awarded for several categories including:

*Most observations

*Most observations by Rangatahi (13-24)

*Most observations New iNat user (last 3 months)

*Most species

*Most unusual plant find

*Most unusual animal find

A big thank you to our prize sponsors, Lincoln University, Canterbury University Press, Trees for Canterbury and Canterbury Horticultural Society, Christchurch City Council Libraries and Parks.

Stay for drinks and nibbles and networking after the prize-giving.

Entry is free but please register here so we know how many to cater for.

We have four 'Ask an Expert' sessions planned at The Nature Lab to help you in the next phase of the City Nature Challenge.

The Nature Lab is on Climate Action Campus, 180 Avonside Drive, in S Block. The Lab will be open from 3pm-6pm each day for four days.

Microscopes are set up to support looking at some of the tiny things collected and other tools will be available to help you get a good photo.

Experts on duty are:

Tuesday 30 April – Seamus Moran (UC) and Peter Holder (UC)

Wednesday 1 May – George Cox (UC) and Robb Eastman-Densem (UC)

Thursday 2 May – Julia Palmer (UC) and Sarah Mankelow (CCC)

Friday 3 May – Rob Cruickshank (UC) and Morgane Merien (Canterbury Museum)

Four days to find them, and in the day and darkness photograph them.
Six days to upload them, and in the evenings ID them.

What a impressive effort so far! Remember that the fun has just started. We've now got the rest of the week, until the end of Sunday, to upload the rest of our photos and identify as many of the uploaded observations as we can. Results then get collated on Monday, and for Ōtautahi we'll have a celebration and prize giving at Tūranga (the central library) on Tuesday evening (7 May).

There will be more posts about all that soon, including the ID sessions happening at the climate action campus through the week. Get ready to watch our species tally climb upwards as the identifications get made.

Anyone can help with IDs. Just saying something is a plant, or a daisy, or a fungus, or a fish, saves the experts the time of trawling through the unidentified observations looking for photos of the species they specialise in. You'll also come across some amazing things that others have uploaded, and identifying others' observations is a terrific way to practice and learn.

To identify the wild things from the Ōtautahi CNC, go here: https://inaturalist.nz/observations/identify?project_id=182887

To identify the cultivated/captive things, go here: https://inaturalist.nz/observations/identify?quality_grade=casual&project_id=182887&captive=true

If you're identifying from the wild link, and see things that are clearly captive/cultivated, it's super helpful to check the captive/cultivated box.

It's also helpful to add annotations like phenology (eg flowering) and life stage.

Calling all birders - Ecologist and bird expert Andrew Crossland will be leading today's hikoi through Bexley Wetland.

Estuary edges - red zone roving bioblitz day four

See the Monday event locations on this map

@leonperrie in Wellington does a clever thing each CNC by providing links to the species previously seen in Wellington but not yet seen in this year's Challenge. It's a great way to focus in on the potentially easy-to-find species that have so far been overlooked. Are they still in the city?

Below are equivalent links for the wider Ōtautahi-Christchurch area. All are species we've previously found in the months of March, April, or May, but that we've not yet found in the 2024 CNC. They're sorted from most to least commonly found, so the top species should be the easiest to add to this year's CNC, and, if you really can't find them, they'll be the most interesting omissions from this year's challenge.

Refresh the links to get an up-to-date look at what's left to find. (And thanks again @leonperrie for this clever way to focus our searching on the final day.)

insects

mostly coastal animals

seaweeds

monocot plants

dicot plants (part 1)

dicot plants (part 2)

dicot plants (part 3)

ferns

non-vascular plants

fungi

birds

lizards and frogs

spiders

tagging in the top CNC observers so far: @maximus-prime, @boytouchgrass, @ruralroamer, @jupal04, @meurkc, @zane_lazare, @katemccombs, @liamcassidy, @smankelow, @jennysaito, @horoekaheimdall, @climber73, @katrina_muir, @walkerwanderer, @kolmar, @davidanderson, @eleanor_bissell, @diane-nz, @frankashwood, @bjradford, @thomas_ferguson, @hayley22473, @william-harland, @agoranomos, @morganemerien, @katmiller, @dwgryphon, @bt98408, @alimathias, @karen61753, @aliciahp, @daisyzebra, @gillian2024aranui, @mac_durning, @lhumpage, @edmonds5, @anistasya, @canterburymuseum, @sarah_uc, @fuligogirl, @fungifans, @seamusmoran, @bexdoll, @nickystein164, @resuelze, @shayla43, @fruitsalad04, @robcruickshank, @clover247, @fmaiorano

Sunday's events include:

Takahe to town hikoi with Jon Sullivan

Eco-Sanctuary exploration - red zone roving bioblitz day three

Mini bioblitz of Northbrook Wetlands

McCormacks Bay bioblitz

Mini-bioblitz at Mahoe Reserve

See all of the Sunday events on this map

We're off to a great start, and hot on the heels of Wellington. It's fantastic to see so many people out and about across Ōtautahi-Christchurch making observations!

I just made a new project on iNaturalist NZ that brings together all of the Hoake ki te Taiao-City Nature Challenge events at Ōtautahi-Christchurch, New Zealand. You can look there to see how our totals are going compared with past events.

https://inaturalist.nz/projects/city-nature-challenge-otautahi-christchurch-all-years

Our first CNC event was in 2019, and we were the first city from Australasia to enter. In that event we focused on getting experts out to all of the habitats across the Christchurch District to get a big species total. It worked, and we got 2,062 species and were 10th in the world in 2019.

2024's event has been planned differently. This year we've been about making activities that we hope will get lots of people out exploring our city's nature. That looks like it's working, as by the end of day 2 we've never had this many people uploading observations.

If you looked at that project comparing us with past events, you'll have seen that we're still early in the competition. The 2019 event ended up with 17,580 observations, and we're only at 5,578 at the moment this year. That's because there are a lot more observations to come. Remember that you've got a week after the four days are over to upload the rest of your photos and help everyone with their identifications. We're a long way from our final tally.

I did a search on each of those past projects to see where they were at by the end of the second day. Check it out:

CNC 2019: 5,405 observations of 1,264 species by 155 observers

CNC 2020: 1,604 observations of 624 species by 85 observers

CNC 2021: 2,882 observations of 884 species by 80 observers

CNC 2022: 1,574 observations of 691 species by 80 observers

CNC 2023: 2,506 observations of 757 species by 110 observers

CNC 2024: 5,640 observations of 1,205 species by 214 observers

So, 2024 is shaping up really well! We've never had this many people observing by the end of day 2, nor observations, and we're within a whisker of the species from our big 2019 event. 2024 could end up being our biggest challenge result yet!

Keep on spreading the word and photographing species and getting outside having fun looking for wild species (after a good night's sleep).

Day two events, Saturday 27 April

Bioblitz in the Styx

Red zone roving bioblitz day two - Landings and Lakes - Morning

Discover the dunes guided walk

Birds of Ashley/Rakahuri Estuary

City Nature Challenge Tuhura Discovery Session

Spotlight on Sullivan Park

See all of the Saturday events on this map

Today's events

Red Zone roving bioblitz day one - ‘Riverlution’

Te Riu-o-Te-Aika-Kawa-Brooklands Lagoon guided walk

Mini BioBlitz of NCF Park

BioBlitz of University of Canterbury Campus

Spotlight on Nighttime Critters

Bioblitz bonanza evening extravaganza

See all of the Friday events on this map