iNaturalist's City Nature Challenge 2021 and Fairfax County's SGCNs

This post explores the utility of iNaturalist’s City Nature Challenge 2021 (April 30th to May 3rd) to harness community science observations in order to support observing Virginia’s Species of Greatest Conservation Need (SGCN). Fairfax 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, Manassas Park, 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 Fairfax County. Fairfax 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, 431 observers recorded 11,496 observations of 1,537 species in the county. Fourteen species of great conservation need (SGCN) were observed during the City Nature Challenge.

• Gray Catbird (Dumetella carolinensis), 24 observations


• Eastern Towhee (Pipilo erythrophthalmus), 10 observations


• Green Heron (Butorides virescens), 9 observations


• Wood Thrush (Hylocichla mustelina), 7 observations


• Common Box Turtle (Terrapene carolina), 5 observations


• Eastern Kingbird (Tyrannus tyrannus), 3 observations


• Yellow-breasted Chat (Icteria virens), 2 observations


• Northern Flicker (Colaptes auratus), 2 observations


• Spotted Turtle (Clemmys guttata), 2 observations


• Eastern Ribbon Snake (Thamnophis saurita), 2 observations


• Rusty Blackbird (Euphagus carolinus), 1 observation


• Northern Rough-winged Sparrow (Stelgidopteryx serripennis), 1 observation


• Brown Thrasher (Toxostoma rufum), 1 observation


• An Amphipod (Stygobromus), 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 Fairfax County’s SGCNs, and including this year’s bioblitz, 681 observers have documented 42 SGCNs with 2,426 observations in iNaturalist.

Posted on 15 de maio de 2021, 08:36 AM by tca12345