City Nature Challenge 2020: Alachua County's Boletim

1. Create iNaturalist account
2. When in field, take as many separate photos of plants and animals (and do not upload to iNaturalist, just take lots of photos and allow them to be stored on phone; make sure locating services is on)
3. With smartphone and data or when hooked up to wireless, upload all these photos to Google Photo . Then, go to google photos on computer and download all google photos to folder on computer
4. OR: On your laptop or computer, connect smartphone to computer and directly download all the field photos to a folder on your computer
5. Go to your Inaturalist account on your computer and sign in
6. In the upper right – you will see a green button (Upload – click it)
7. Select Choose files (find folder and then select all photos and click open)
8. You should see all the photos on your computer screen, make sure they all have a location on them and a date, you can give them a species name if you know it)
9. Hit the submit observations button (upper right)
10. All done!

(NOTE: Do not link your iNaturalist account to Google Photos and upload that way as the geolocation is lost and will not register in contest)

Just a note about uploading photos. One must take photos between April 24th -27th. However, you have until midnight May 3 to upload them to get them counted in the challenge.

Also - if you do not have a camera or have an observation without a photo, you can do a casual observation, just describe what you saw and upload it and it will be counted as a casual observation and is recorded during the challenge. Good luck all and be safe!

To see examples of uploaded photos - go to https://www.facebook.com/groups/473775399872755/

If folks do not have a camera, an acceptable method is to enter casual observations (no photo). Just go to http://www.inaturalist.org and register yourself. Then starting April 24th you logon and and start inputting all the animals on your property and neighborhood that you see (but make sure to have a location entered - you will see this on the observation - for each upload). Let me know if you have any questions. You can test it out now but redo it again starting April 24th.

I will be posting iNaturalist Facebook live recordings for folks during the event April 24-27th.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/473775399872755/

Many natural areas are located near residential areas in and around cities. These natural areas, in combination with nearby urban lots, can be managed to provide habitat for a variety of wildlife species and have improved ecosystem services. The goals of the Neighborhood Natural Area Network is 1) to raise awareness about the value of these natural remnants and 2) to improve communication and management actions among residents in order to increase the biological integrity of these areas.