City Nature Challenge

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City Nature Challenge is an international effort to find and document plants and wildlife in cities across the globe!

This year, Greater Belfast Area + is participating in the City Nature Challenge from Friday 26th to Monday 29th April.  It's a BioBlitz - a collective event to discover as many species as possible in a specific area over a short period of time. 

City Nature Challenge brings over 500 cities in friendly contest with each other to see who can make the most observations of nature, who can find the most species, and who can engage the most people using the citizen science platform iNaturalist. 

City Nature Challenge calls on nature and science fans, current and aspiring wildlife enthusiasts and people of all ages to get out outside and submit pictures of wild plants, animals, and fungi during the challenge. This helps scientists track real-time changes in our planet's biodiversity and better understand wildlife conservation. 

How to participate

Download the free iNaturalist mobile app on your smartphone and share a photo with the app. It will assist you to identify and record the species you find. Each record is known as an 'observation' and all observations made during the event will count towards the challenge! 

• Search for nature 
  Find nature as you explore in and around the Greater Belfast + area - look around home, local parks, school and work! 
• Take a picture 
  Snap an image of the animals, wild plants, or fungi that you find. If they aren't wild (like domestic animals or planted flowers), make sure to mark them as captive/cultivated. 
• Share with the app 
  Share your observations and record what you find by clicking ’observe’ or ‘+’ on the iNaturalist app. You can also upload your photos to uk.inaturalist.org. Follow the progress in the Greater Belfast + area by joining the City Nature Challenge Greater Belfast Page. 
• The results are in! 
  The week after the City Nature Challenge, all observations are identified and counted. Help identify wildlife observations made by other people and learn more about your own observations. The worldwide competition results will be revealed at www.citynaturechallenge.org on Monday 6 May 2024