City Nature Challenge 2024: South Florida (#CNCSOFLO)'s Journal

Good afternoon CNC participants,

It's been one week since the CNC results were announced! I've been meaning to write up a post analyzing how we did this year but haven't had the time. The following link has a journal post from the official City Nature Challenge umbrella project for North and South America:
https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/city-nature-challenge-2024-north-and-south-america/journal/94033-cnc-2024-results

You can also read this great write up about the 2024 City Nature Challenge: https://www.calacademy.org/press/releases/city-nature-challenge-records-24-million-wildlife-observations-from-more-than-83000

Numbers from all 690 participating cities/locations:
https://www.citynaturechallenge.org/current-results

We finished in 7th place overall for species count, 16th place for observation count and 24th place for the number of participants. That's out of 690 cities around the world!

We improved on our species count by almost 400 species and observation count by over 6,000 observations but dropped by over 200 observers compared to last year. I am planning on putting together a short video to compare our results with previous years, but you can also use this link to see all of the South Florida CNC projects over the years:
https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/city-nature-challenge-south-florida-2017-2024

Many organizations were involved with making this year's CNC a success by hosting events. I think I got all of them but if I missed one, please comment below so we can recognize them for putting in the time to put an event together!
Anne Kolb Nature Center
Blowing Rocks Preserve
Broward County
City of Boca Raton
City of West Palm Beach
City of Wilton Manors
Environmentally Endangered Lands
Everglades National Park
Florida Atlantic University
Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary
Frost Science
Historic Virginia Key Beach Park Trust
Institute for Regional Conservation
John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park
Miami Eco Adventures
Miami-Dade Parks & Recreation
Moraes of South Florida
Palm Beach County Department of Environmental Resources Management
University of Florida- IFAS

Many individuals also put in a great effort to make the CNC happen this year and I want to particularly highlight @jimw3 and his Documenting Biodiversity Course at FAU, which he offered for the first time ever this year after being inspired by how well we did in the City Nature Challenge last year. His students and him together posted 7,461 observations, over 25% of our total observations! That's right, one single class and professor were responsible for a quarter of all observations posted for South Florida!! His top student, @maycla25, joined iNaturalist on January 10th and has already observation 528 different species, 309 of which were during this year's CNC!

Our top identifiers so far are @phil333 with 5.2k identifications, @jimw3 with 4.7k identifications, @oliver_g_jones with 1.9k and @kyle481 with 1.4k identifications! We still have many observations that need to be identified but we will get through them surely but surely...

Hope you enjoyed participating and again, I will probably add one more journal post soon to look through some of our observations. If you noticed any particularly impressive or interesting observations from our CNC, please share a link or two or more as a comment!

By the way, here is next year's CNCSOFLO project: https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/city-nature-challenge-2025-south-florida-cncsoflo
You can search for it via the app by typing in "CNCSOFLO 2025"

Never too early to join and start preparing... remember citizen science is all about observing biodiversity year-round, not just during 4 days in spring! So keep your eyes peeled and keep those observations coming :-)

Joe MDO & the CNCSOFLO Team

Good evening CNCSOFLO-ers!

We just broke 3,000 species for the first time ever! Many folks are still uploading pics taken from the observation period and at this point we are within touching distance of passing Cape Town. They have always been the City Nature Challenge juggernauts and it's wild to think we may end up passing them. Whatever the case, this has been the best CNCSOFLO yet in terms of species observed. Our number of participants dropped quite a bit compared to last year, but there's always the chance that we will get a few new folks adding observations from last Friday-Monday. Go through your friends' camera rolls and check for nature pics! Spread the word on social media!

Thanks and keep up the great work,
Joe MDO & the CNCSOFLO Team

Hi everyone,

Hope you've had a great City Nature Challenge so far! Although the observation period ended on Monday, many users are still uploading photos and audio captured during the observation period of the CNC. This means our numbers are still going up! We have the potential to pass several cities above us as more identifications and observations are added. If you have expertise identifying organisms in South Florida, whether you specialize in bird ID, botany, fish, or something else, you can help us out by looking through observations and adding identifications.

This is a great video tutorial on how to add identifications:
https://www.inaturalist.org/pages/video+tutorials#identify

If you feel like you want to give adding an identifications a shot after watching that video, you can use this link to lend a hand:
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/identify?verifiable=true&project_id=167912

Remember, only add identifications if you feel confident about your ID! It's better for us to have higher quality data than many incorrectly identified observations, even if it means we have a lower species count.

Also keep in mind you can filter the results to only include the organisms you are most familiar with. For example, if you are a whiz at dragonfly and damselfly ID, you can type in "Odonata" under search species, and that will filter the results.

Another tip if you don't feel you have much expertise at IDing specific organisms, you can look through observations marked as "unknown" by using the link below. This will give you the opportunity to practice IDing organisms to a not very specific level but think of it as "filing" the observations into the right place for experts to ID them further. In other words, if someone posted a flower and left the observation as unknown, you can add the ID "Plants" and then the iNat community that looks over plant observations will be able to see the observation and narrow down the ID.
Here's the link for helping categorize those "unknown" observations from CNCSOFLO:
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/identify?iconic_taxa=unknown&verifiable=true&project_id=167912

Thanks for all of your contributions so far! One last thing... if you know anyone that snapped some pictures of nature around Miami from Friday to Monday, tell them to post them to iNaturalist! We have until Sunday, May 5th to finalize our results and see how we did in comparison to all the other cities participating around the world.

-Joe MDO & the CNCSOFLO Team

Hi everyone,

Hope you have been out documenting and enjoying South Florida's biodiversity! Today is the last day to capture observations. Remember you can find biodiversity just about everywhere. Check the lawn weeds in the parking lot of your workplace, your porch lights after dark for bugs or maybe head to a local nature preserve to find some species you haven't documented yet! Also remember we have until next Sunday, May 5th, to actually upload our observations to iNaturalist. This is also considered the identification period. I have taken well over a thousand observations but only uploaded my first one in order to avoid spending time processing my images and uploading!

So what have you seen so far? Have you run into any cool observations posted by others? Remember you can "fave" an observation so it's easier for others to look at the most interesting observations! Here are the two observations with the most faves so far:

Scarlet kingsnake found by @kwalkeriv in Everglades National Park: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/210021712

A pair of mating horseshoe crabs found by @elinetsky at the Blue Heron Bridge:
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/210021712

Keep up the great work and stay tuned for an update on how we are doing. Keep those observations coming!

Hi everyone!

We are just four days away from the beginning of the 2024 City Nature Challenge! With the CNC right around the corner, we wanted to make sure everyone is aware of a few resources that may be particularly helpful.

CNCSOFLO website:
https://www.cncsoflo.com/
Check the site out for events during the CNC weekend.
If you are planning on hosting an event, make sure to register your event so we can include it on the site!

iNaturalist documents:
Why iNaturalist?- https://drive.google.com/file/d/1s9JPUY6oZZq_iWyH-xE6ZMyTaxazjPqm/view?usp=drive_link
Best practices & things to avoid- https://drive.google.com/file/d/1-uzRKVVu4qfxU2j3WM9y_fibd8B756Pb/view?usp=sharing
How to upload and use iNaturalist- https://drive.google.com/file/d/1R25YIzmZvO0V48Sa7_ycgcE4b03Lj8K3/view?usp=drive_link
Research Grade, Needs ID, Casual Grade explained- https://drive.google.com/file/d/1RcOcIleKdAuwYnePPF4FmsF-cB0pTSyF/view?usp=drive_link
iNat extras (cool features newer users may not be familiar with- https://drive.google.com/file/d/1YQ5-X9Q7UFS4baukgAVqLW1KC-Mai-BI/view?usp=drive_link

South Florida Lawn Weeds Guide:
https://www.inaturalist.org/guides/9022
Did you know lawn weeds are one of the easiest examples of biodiversity to observe just about anywhere you go? This guide includes the most common lawn weeds found in South Florida, loosely in order from most common & widely distributed to least common. While photographing lawn weeds, keep an eye out for pollinators and other little critters that use them as habitat!

Community service
Do you know any students in need of community service hours? You can contact me at joemdo.inaturalist@gmail.com with the student's username and I will provide community service hours equal to 1 hour for every 10 observations posted during the City Nature Challenge. The observations need to be either Needs ID or Research Grade to count. For more info, check out the following document:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1FXYGWJ6l2OuAnESoOv-RfW8Bwk7KIQR6/view?usp=drive_link

Thanks for reading and happy iNatting!
-Joe MDO & the CNCSOFLO Team