With the iNaturalist app loaded and ready, participants in the last week’s City Nature Challenge were given basic instructions — snap as many photos and videos of all biodiversity present in their urban environments – birds, plants, wildlife, beetles, bugs, you name it.
The four-day Natural Challenge is an international event, with more than 690 cities across 51 countries participated last year. The event was first held in 2016.
Boerne’s naturalists played a major role as part of the San Antonio Metro’s four-day challenge. While San Antonio placed first nationwide last year, as of late Sunday, San Antonio ranks first in the nation and second worldwide, with over 80,000 observations.
One observation group met at Patrick Heath Public Library, led by master naturalist Laura Bray.
“Not only is this a great way to get people outside, but it’s an excellent way to collect data for scientists,” Bray said. “New species have been discovered this way. You snap a photo or video, and the app will identify it for you, so you get to learn something new.”
The rules for the nature challenge are simple: As long as you are capturing photos and videos within the 12-county area in San Antonio and surrounding areas, your data is counted as an official observation.
Other groups in Boerne met in Joshua Springs and Guadalupe River State Park.
“At Guadalupe State Park, they are doing a fish and aquatic life observation,” Bray said. “I’ve never done one of those, and I’m excited to do it. I’m going there right after this event.”
Rita Bordman, a volunteer with the Cibolo Nature Center and a hill country master naturalist, attended the event in great spirits.
“This is my second year doing it,” Bordman. “I had 136 observations last year. I went with a group (Friday) at the Guadalupe River State Park to do the butterfly observation and got a bunch of entries in.”
The four-day event began Friday and wrapped up Monday.
“The great thing is that if you can’t make it out to one of the group sites, you can just take out your phone and go through your neighborhood,” Bray said. “You can drive through neighborhoods and see people snapping photos.”
San Antonio currently sits at 87,433 observations, followed behind by La Paz at 53,824 observations. Results will be finalized May 5.
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