Thanks to everyone who participated over the past three months in our Summer of Nature project.
Together, we made over 800 observations of nearly 300 species!
Our Top Observer was @jafu6 and our Top Species Finder was @lisabrundage! The Most Observed Species was the Rock Pigeon, Columba livia.
Check out our project stats:
It's time to announce the results of the Top 20 Challenge. Everyone had the entire month of August to find as many of the Top 20 Observed Species on iNaturalist as they could.
The winner of the challenge was @klodonnell who found 13 of the Top 20 Species! In second place, we had @jafu6 with 10/20, and in third place, @lisabrundage with 7/20. Other Top 20 finders were: @sasha11, @emilyrice, @krisgowin1, and @clow.
Together we found 16 of the Top 20 Species! We were only missing Red-tailed Hawk, Asian Lady Beetle, Common Yarrow, and Western Fence Lizard. Great job, everyone!
Final Summer of Nature results in the next post!
It's time for our final summer challenge! For the month of August, let's see how many of iNaturalist's Top 20 Observed Species you can find! With one exception, these can all be found across the entire US (no Western Fence Lizards in the east, sorry). Make yourself a checklist and see who you can find!
Top 20 Observed Species on iNaturalist
Mallard, Anas platyrhynchos
Western Honey Bee, Apis mellifera
Monarch, Danaus plexippus
Great Blue Heron, Ardea herodias
American Robin, Turdus migratorius
House Sparrow, Passer domesticus
Canada Goose, Branta canadensis
White-tailed Deer, Odocoileus virginianus
Red-tailed Hawk, Buteo jamaicensis
Great Egret, Ardea alba
Eastern Gray Squirrel, Sciurus carolinensis
Asian Lady Beetle, Harmonia axyridis
Northern Cardinal, Cardinalis cardinalis
House Finch, Haemorhous mexicanus
Common Dandelion, Taraxacum officinale
Common Yarrow, Achillea millefolium
Western Fence Lizard, Sceloporus occidentalis
Mourning Dove, Zenaida macroura
Rock Pigeon, Columba livia
Red-winged Blackbird, Agelaius phoeniceus
July's MHC iNaturalist challenge will be to find moths during National Moth Week. This annual event is like a worldwide BioBlitz just looking for moths. Leave a light on and see what comes to you! For more info, visit the National Moth Week iNaturalist Project or the National Moth Week website.
For our project, let's see who can find the most moths to add to our collection. Currently, we have only THREE moths in this whole project: a teeny Pug Moth caterpillar I found, this very cool day-flying Nessus Sphinx found by @ccali, and this magnificent Elm Sphinx found by @lisabrundage. Let's get some more!
Challenge Details
Observation dates: Saturday, July 18 - Sunday, July 26
Taxa included: MOTHS! Technically, this means insects in the Order Lepidoptera excluding the Superfamily Papilionoidea (the butterflies).
Hey folks!
We're going to have a July challenge posted next week, but in the meantime, check out July's NYC Ecoflora project - Climbing the Walls. It's a project to document plants living on human-built surfaces in NYC. This project is what iNat calls "traditional", meaning that you have to push your observations into it once you join. If you want to participate, here are the steps:
1 - Join the Project - click this link to join the project. Joining allows the project to pop up in your mobile iNat app.
2 - Make an observation of a plant growing on a wall just like you would make any other observation. BUT before you click Save, choose a project from the selection box on the Details screen.
3 - Upload your observation.
Note: This project is only for observations from NYC. Sorry to those folks who are out of town right now.
Stay tuned for more info about our challenge week in July and another Socially Distant BioBlitz later on in the month.
Happy July, everyone!
We had two participants reach our challenge goal of 10 species in the last half of June! Congrats to @lisabrundage and @klodonnell (lol).
Shout out to everyone else who made observations during our Solstice Challenge: @clow, @emilyrice, and @josephugoretz!
Stay tuned for a July challenge!
The Summer Solstice is June 20 (at 5:43PM). That means we've got a lot more daylight to explore. Our June challenge is to find at least 10 different species in the next 15 days. I'll pull the data from today through June 30, which means these 10 species can be ones you've already observed in the project as long as you observe them again between 6/16 and 6/30.
At least 10 species by June 30 - ready...GO!
Hey folks! Let's show off the nature around us wherever we are this summer! All through June, July, and August, make iNaturalist observations and have them count towards this project. How many different species can we find? How far can we expand our map? What will be the most observed species? Let's find out!
Here's how to participate:
1 - Join the project (the Join button is in the project banner on the app and in the browser).
2 - Make observations wherever you are June 1, 2020 through August 31, 2020.
That's it! It's easy! The project will automatically collect all of your observations once you join. I'll announce some fun stats and challenges periodically in this project journal. You'll get updates in the Activity section of the app or via email (if you enabled that function in iNaturalist).
If you're sticking around mostly inside, there are still things to observe! Check out this list of recommendations from City Nature Challenge - Stay at Home Scavenger Hunt
