Diario del proyecto City Nature Challenge 2021: Greater Phoenix Area

Great job everyone! We are in the second day of the City Nature Challenge and already have nearly 4,000 observations! We’ve also observed 630 different species. What a great way to highlight the diversity of the desert. If you’re unsure about identifying your observation you can simply put whether it is a plant or animal and other iNaturalist users can work on identifying later during identification days (May 4-9). Remember, documenting organisms in the middle of a city is just as important as documenting them in the wild. We are neck and neck with Albuquerque, and Tucson is catching up in the competition, so keep the observations coming!

We are in the final hours of the City Nature Challenge and want to make sure we take advantage of every minute. If you have free time today during lunch go for a walk and observe some nature or if you go out this afternoon make sure to snap some photos of interesting things and upload them to the app.

Albuquerque still has the lead over us in most observations, but not by much! Can we overtake them by the end of the day? Every observation matters! See the competition.

As a reminder, if you took photos but haven’t had a chance to upload them to iNaturalist, you may do so up until May 9. This will be strictly on the honors system so please be honest and only upload photos from that period of time.

The observation part of the City Nature Challenge has officially closed and we want to thank all of you who participated in this year’s event. We were so astonished with the amount of observations, the wonderful photos everyone posted and the variety of things people captured. We hope all of you enjoyed your time adding observations while being outdoors and that you all learned something new along the way.

The official numbers will be announced on May 10, but as of right now we have 9,632 observations of 1061 species by 274 people! So impressive!

We will be working today through May 9 to identify your observations. If you’d like to be a part of this process, join us for one or both ID parties, scheduled on May 6 (virtual) from 6-7 p.m. and May 8 (in person) at the Environmental Education Center at Veterans Oasis Park from 9-11 a.m. You are also welcome to make identifications yourself, from the comfort of where you live.

Register for the virtual ID party.

Register for the in-person ID party.

We are steadily working away at identifying observations. Here are some of the most interesting things we’ve seen! Click the text to see the observation.

What a rat’s nest by @stevejones.

Very buddy saguaro by @yammadoodles.

Backyard bobcat by @cew1208.

Urban fox by @oajenks.

Mating kingsnakes by @juliestromberg.

Roaming bearded dragon by @trhamil602.

Osprey with a snack by @direwolfplayz.

Grackle chasing an eagle by @larandas.

Owl family by @crolsky.

That’s a wrap! The official City Nature Challenge results were announced yesterday afternoon and we want to share them with you. Thank you to everyone who participated, we couldn’t be more excited about the results, especially for our first year!

Global Top Three:
Cape Town, South Africa, Washington, D.C, and Dallas/Fort Worth
Greater Phoenix landed as 30th in the world out of 419 cities!
Check out the global stats here.

Southwest Competition (Albuquerque, Phoenix, Tucson):
Albuquerque took first place, Greater Phoenix was second and Tucson took third. Congrats to Albuquerque!
Together we made 22,857 observations of 2,138 species by 823 people.
See the competition.

Greater Phoenix Area:
We had 9,702 observations of 1039 species by 283 people. 291 people also made identifications!
Top observer: @direwolfplayz with 1,729
Most species: @larivera with 239
Most identifications: @stevejones with 1,919
Congratulations! We will contact you all about your prizes.

Metro Phoenix EcoFlora
The Metro Phoenix EcoFlora is a collaborative community science project of Desert Botanical Garden and the Central Arizona Conservation Alliance (CAZCA). You can think of this as a year round version of the City Nature Challenge! Join the project to learn about urban biodiversity, attend virtual and in-person events, and earn rewards for your observations.

City of Chandler-Community Services
The Community Services Department enhances the quality of life in Chandler through a vast provision of diverse and affordable educational and recreational experiences. Check out their ”Break Time” magazine for fun activities in every season.

Educating Children Outdoors
Through ECO, children learn about and explore nature through cross-curricular, hands-on, experiential activities, developing knowledge about, love for, and dedication to nature’s wonders. Check out their programs on their website and their iNaturalist project.

Thank you again to all of the amazing participants and collaborators. See you next year!