iNaturalist's City Nature Challenge 2021 and Loudoun County's SGCNs
This post explores the utility of iNaturalist’s City Nature Challenge 2021 (April 30th to May 3rd) to harness community scientist observations in order to support observing Virginia’s Species of Greatest Conservation Need (SGCN). Loudoun County Focus!
The City Nature Challenge is iNaturalist’s massive spring bioblitz and the Washington DC area participates. The DC challenge includes the Washington DC metropolitan area so for Virginia, these counties (and cities within) are included; Alexandria, Arlington, Fairfax, Loudoun, Manassas, Fauquier, Prince William, Stafford, Fredericksburg, and Spotsylvania.
Virginia’s SGCN effort is divided into planning regions. The Northern Virginia Planning Region includes significant county overlap with iNaturalist’s City Nature Challenge. This planning region includes the following counties; Alexandria, Arlington, Fairfax, Loudoun, Manassas, and Prince William, and the cities within.
This post spotlights Loudoun County. Loudoun County is within Virginia’s Northern Virginia Planning Region. Let’s take a look at what SGCNs were observed during the City Nature Challenge 2021.
During the city nature challenge, 87 observers recorded 1,657 observations of 620 species in the county. Five species of great conservation need (SGCN) were observed during the City Nature Challenge.
- Gray Catbird (Dumetella carolinensis), 5 observations
- Belted Kingfisher (Megaceryle alcyon), 2 observations
- Eastern Towhee (Pipilo erythrophthalmus), 2 observations
- Brown Thrasher (Toxostoma rufum), 2 observations
- Green Heron (Butorides virescens), 1 observation
The surge of community science observations during the iNaturalist City Nature Challenge 2021 adds to the understanding of Virginia’s identified species of greatest conservation need. For Loudoun County’s SGCNs, and including this year’s bioblitz, 104 observers have documented 20 SGCNs with 290 observations.
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