Day 2 of the iNaturalist City Nature Challenge. Over 4,000 observations and quite a variety of species. I am enjoying all the observations ..... two more days to go. We want to get over 10,000 observations. Keep spreading the word!
Day 3 of the iNaturalist City Nature Challenge. This was the day of celebrating "all creatures great and small." Photos from tiny insects to large alligators. Looks like folks are having fun! The diversity in Alachua County is astounding. Over 6000 observations. Keep taking photos. One more day left to document critters and such in your area.
Day 4 of the iNaturalist City Nature Challenge and we are above 8,000 observations! This time around, I noticed several people putting up lights and a white sheet at night and documenting night species. Quite a variety!
Remember, you have until midnight May 9 to upload observations. Keep them coming. Also, we need identifications - you can search for birds or insects under "Identify" in iNaturalist. You have until May 9 to identify the observations.
Wow! For the sixth annual iNaturalist City Nature Challenge 2021, Alachua County did really well! About 400 city/counties participated from around the world. A big heartfelt thanks to everyone that participated in the 2021 Challenge throughout Alachua County. This was Alachua County’s second time participating in this worldwide event over four days, April 30 - May 3. Collectively within this period, across the globe, 1,256,693 observations were made with 45,368 species recorded by 52,183 people. You can view all the observations and statistics for each city here (https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/city-nature-challenge-2021).
Across Alachua County, there were 10,406 observations, 1,887 species, and 276 observers. We were ranked approximately 28th in the world (and that is not per capita!). All kinds of species were recorded with some amazing photographs . . . slime molds, reptiles, amphibians, birds, spiders, insects, many plants, foxes and other mammals, fish, and all kinds of fungi. It is quite astounding the diversity of organisms in and around cities and neighborhoods. This challenge was truly about “All Creatures Great and Small!” Folks also helped identify what was in photographs and we had 498 identifiers this year. Because of these observations and identifications, the machine learning has improved for future identifications of species in Alachua County.
