The City Nature Challenge 2023!
Hello again everyone! My name is Aaron Lincoln. I'm a Texas Master Naturalist from the Heart of Texas Chapter in Waco. Thank you to everyone who helped participate in our event last year! It was very successful! Here's a link in case you want to check out how we did:
https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/city-nature-challenge-2022-heart-of-texas
For anyone who isn't aware, the City Nature Challenge, is a wonderful time during April when cities across the world have a friendly competition to see who can make the most observations and find the most species. Apart from being a lot of fun, the challenge makes a real contribution to science and helps guide policy sometimes in bigger cities once decision makers see what kind of organisms are present in the area. You can find more info here:
http://citynaturechallenge.org/
Everything is done on iNaturalist, so you don't have to do anything different, just get out there and make observations. There's usually 4 days for observations followed by a week to upload and make identifications. I really think that our area with Hamilton, Hillsboro, Waco, Temple, Killeen, Belton, and outlying areas has something special to offer, especially as the area continues to grow and development replaces natural areas.
Last year's results were impressive, but I think we can do even better this year. Getting the word out to as many as possible and increasing our participants is key. Please feel free to tag anyone you can think of in this post and promote whenever possible.
It's still early in the planning phases, so I will continue to make updates as they come. Observation dates will be April 28th through May 1st with identifications being made the following week. Our area includes the following counties: Somervell, Bosque, Hamilton, Hill, Coryell, McLennan, Bell, Milam, and Falls. Here is the link to the project page for this year:
https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/city-nature-challenge-2023-heart-of-texas
