Frequently asked questions
When does the contest start and end?
The City Nature Challenge is April 26 - 29, 2024.
The contest is four days long and starts at 12:00 a.m. on Friday, April 26 and ends at midnight on Monday, April 29. Many participants will stay up late Thursday night and start looking for moths and other nocturnal critters right after the clock hits midnight! Since our start is in the central time zone, participants in far away places like Sydney, Australia and Hong Kong will be starting a day before us and it is fun to watch their observations as they come in.
Following this observation period, there will be an “ID week” from April 30 to May 5 to finish uploading observations that were taken and to identify as many observations as possible. If you can help make identifications, please do!
Winners will be announced on May 6.
Can I use photos that I have taken before April 26, 2024?
No, these will not count for the City Nature Challenge event. Photos and sound recordings have to be taken April 26 - 29, 2024. However, you have through May 5 to sort through your media taken April 26 - 29 and get them uploaded into iNaturalist. This is especially helpful if you use a DSLR camera and take tons of photos. The time stamp automatically tagged to your photo by your phone or camera will tell iNaturalist when it was taken. (Be sure to update your camera’s clock setting to account for daylight savings!) That said, older photos are still valuable scientific data and can be added to iNaturalist anytime — they just will not count toward the City Nature Challenge contest.
What are some tips for making good iNaturalist observations during the City Nature Challenge?
View our Helpful Tips page
How can I see Baton Rouge region’s observations?
You can view our iNaturalist project here: City Nature Challenge 2024: Baton Rouge. You will be able to view all of the observations that are added as they come in during the contest.
You can also view the global City Nature Challenge umbrella projects:
City Nature Challenge 2024: North & South America
City Nature Challenge 2024: Eurasia/Africa/Oceania
Challenge another group! You can create iNaturalist projects to track your contest too!
How do I get my observations into the Baton Rouge project?
Any iNaturalist observations made April 26 - 29 within these parishes will automatically be collected into the Baton Rouge contest project: Ascension, East Baton Rouge, East Feliciana, Iberville, Livingston, Pointe Coupee, St. Helena, St. Tammany, Tangipahoa, Washington, West Baton Rouge, and West Feliciana, plus the parts of these conservation areas that lie partially outside of the listed parishes: Atchafalaya National Wildlife Refuge, Sherburne WMAs, Manchac WMA, and Maurepas Swamp WMA. You do not need to add them to the project or join a special project.
What if I don’t have reception?
If you are using the app, it will hold your observations and will finish uploading them when you reopen the app later when you have reception or wifi. Another option is to take photos and wait until you get home to upload them onto the website or the app when you have reception or wifi.
What do I do if iNaturalist is too slow?
During the City Nature Challenge, there is a huge crush of people all over the globe uploading observations that can slow it down sometimes.
PRO TIP: One simple way to avoid slow connections is to take your photos with your phone or camera first, and then post them in iNaturalist at your convenience later. This way, you always have the photos saved with the digital timestamp between April 26 - 29.
PRO TIP II: You have extra time during “ID Week” April 30 - May 5 to finish uploading your photos that are timestamped between April 26 - 29 as observations into iNaturalist! Though it helps our results if you can upload the observations sooner which gives the identifiers more time.
How do we win?
The City Nature Challenge has three main categories: Most observations, most species observed, and most participants.
Science wins! In addition to the valuable observation data, there are fun finds in the global City Nature Challenge each year that amaze us all, like an observation of an extremely rare species, a crazy species interaction, or the first sighting of a species in a state or country.
And we win! Exploring the outdoors is a healthy activity and learning about nature is great education for all ages. It also helps develop “topophilia,” a love of place, and “biophilia,” love of life and living things.
What if I don’t know what something is?
That is ok! If you know it is definitely a bird or a plant, this is a perfectly acceptable identification to submit with your observation. If you have no idea at all, you can leave it as Unknown or identify it as “Life.” iNaturalist users will often add a “coarse” identification to your observation, like bird, plant, insect, or mammal. This is to help the people with specific expertise sort observations that need further identification by the taxon that they specialize in.
What about animals I am attracting to my yard?
These make good observations too, as long as they are wild! Feel free to make observations of birds at your bird feeder or moths attracted to a light.
Can I use a critter cam?
Yes, if the quality is good enough to make an identification, photos from trail cameras and bird feeder cameras are good too!
What about dead animals?
Dead organisms, including road kill and skeletons, are definitely acceptable for observations if there are enough identifiable features on it.
What about things left behind by a plant or animal?
Recent evidence of a wild organism is acceptable for an observation too! Some examples include: eggs, snake sheds, paw prints, empty insect exoskeletons, nests, shells, feathers, and even scat!
What about aquatic critters?
Absolutely – wild aquatic organisms are valuable observations too, including fish, aquatic plants, aquatic invertebrates, and even the microscopic critters!
What about non-native and invasive species?
Non-native and/or invasive species are good observations too, as long as they are wild. Many scientists study this data to monitor how fast an invasive species is moving into new territory or to watch for unexpected new ones.
Can I post a sound recording?
Yes, recordings of frogs, birds and other wildlife calls are also good evidence of an organism. The iNaturalist app has an option to record a sound. You can also add sounds on the website by dragging wav, mp3, or m4a format sound files into the uploader. Or, if you have a SoundCloud account, you can link a sound file in the website uploader.
What does a Research Grade Observation mean?
This means that the observation has data quality that is acceptable for use in scientific research. A research grade observation is of a wild organism, has a location and date, the identification is verified twice at a certain taxon level, and has good evidence of the organism in the photo or sound recording. Research data and photos (depending on the copyright setting you choose) from iNaturalist is free to everyone and shared with several scientific research platforms, including global biodiversity research repositories like GBIF.
What does a Casual Observation mean?
This means that the observation does not include certain information that is required for research. This setting is important because it helps researchers to sort for research grade data only. Most often, a “casual” designation is assigned to observations of organisms that are not wild. The goal is to post research grade observations, however casual observations will still count toward the City Nature Challenge contest.
Is the level of identification important?
Generally, the goal is to identify observations to the species level. However, many organisms are impossible to identify to the species level from a photograph, especially if key features for identification are not visible.
Some organisms cannot be identified to the species level at all without taking it to a lab! A prime example is June Beetles - there are many species that look exactly alike and can only be identified by dissecting them and looking at their genitalia under a microscope. The same applies to the Common Checkered Skipper and the White Checkered Skipper, which are both commonly seen in Louisiana. And that’s perfectly OK – the observations are still valuable data!
Can I help make identifications?
Yes! One big way to help out is to give “unknown” observations a coarse identification, like, bird, plant, mammal, fungus, etc. Experts will sort for the taxa they specialize in, and this will help to get these observations to the identification experts faster. If you are not an expert, odds are there is probably a common species that you are very familiar with and can identify, such as Northern Cardinals or Monarch caterpillars. It is also helpful to mark observations of humans and very obviously captive animals or cultivated plants as “not wild” in the Data Quality Assessment section.
iNaturalist uses a community identification process, so you will see experts making suggestions and corrections - don’t get offended if someone disagrees with an identification. We can learn a lot about species from each other!
Can you Participate with the SEEK app?
SEEK by iNaturalist is an app for beginners and younger naturalists that turns observing nature into a mini scavenger hunt and you can earn badges for finding different types of observations and species. If you log into your iNaturalist account from within the SEEK app, your SEEK observations during the event will count toward the City Nature Challenge!
How do I include eBird data?
In 2022, Baton Rouge signed up as a test city for a new observation aggregator called Biosmart which allowed us to use both iNaturalist and eBird data. The test is over, and the aggregator was not selected, so eBird data will not be used this year.
It is possible to import eBird data into iNaturalist, however, the data is most useful if there are sound recordings or photographs of birds with it. Here are some instructions from Jane Patterson on how to import eBird data into iNaturalist.
Can I earn service hours?
Yes! Volunteering at City Nature Challenge events and collecting biodiversity data in iNaturalist are great ways to earn hours while enjoying the outdoors. E-mail us at brnaturechallenge@gmail.com or tag @amberenergy in iNaturalist with questions, or to request a certificate of participation.
Do you want photos of people?
Yes! But not in iNaturalist, though. The local and global organizers would love to see your photos of people participating in the City Nature Challenge. Simply post in Instagram or Facebook and tag or hashtag #CityNatureChallenge and #BRnaturechallenge.
What if I observed something amazing and want to share my story?
The local and global organizers are interested in hearing about unbelievably amazing interactions or an observation of a very rare species during the City Nature Challenge. Send an e-mail to brnaturechallenge@gmail.com, or tag or send a message to user @amberenergy in iNaturalist.
Why use iNaturalist?
It is an identification and educational tool
Understand the awesome depth and breadth of life on Earth
Use the iNaturalist information available at your fingertips to learn more. Find out stuff, like:
What’s this critter?
What’s this plant?
Is this a bee, wasp or fly?
Is this a native plant?
You can read more about each species and follow links to other resources.
iNaturalist users and scientists help to identify your observations. You can ask questions and get answers from iNaturalist users all over the world.
Regularly observing nature trains your brain to see way more than you EVER imagined.
Watching the food web in action is amazing.
Understand how animals, plants, insects and even mushrooms rely on extremely specific host species for food, shelter, egg-laying, symbiotic relationships, etc.
After regularly observing “boring” species, like moths or flies, you start to notice their differences and you want to see them all!
See Trends
Contribute to Community Science
What’s blooming right now?
What migratory birds have arrived this week?
How far north does this species go?
What species are in my neighborhood?
You can follow iNaturalist users and scientists and see what they are finding.
You can follow a location, like your parish, and see what observations are coming in your area.
How far has this invasive species spread?
Your observations document the location, date, phenology, and life stage of an organism. This is extremely valuable scientific data helps local parks, government and scientists make conservation decisions.
University researchers no longer have the budgets to travel and collect specimens and make observations as often. Community science is a new way to help gather this important data for scientists.
Community science has a distinct advantage of providing scientific data from private property.
The data is free to everyone.
“With so many distractions, how does one become “in” the natural world today, at least to the point of understanding that our well-being is inseparably linked to that of our environment?
A basic first step is to learn what wild plants and animals live in your area. It must go beyond a vague awareness that different types of trees live in a forest and different kinds of fish swim in the bayou. Learning the names of plants and animals is critical to realizing the richness of biodiversity.”
Naturalist, author, and recipient of the Caroline Dormon Outstanding Louisiana Naturalist Award 2020