Kudos, Mendocino County! Participation and species numbers all increased this year and more may trickle in by the deadline of May 10. It's been really fun to browse your observations! Listen to KZYX at 7PM for tonight's Ecology Hour CNC overview with show host Hannah Bird of the Hopland Research & Extension Center.
Please help us verify observations! "Many hands make light work." Here are some FAQ and links from the City Nature Challenge organizers on helping with IDs and moving us toward a higher percentage of "Research Grade" observations.
How do observations in iNaturalist become Research Grade? Do my observations have to get to Research Grade to count for the CNC?
To get an observation to “Research Grade” status: (1) it must have a photo, (2) it must have an accurate date and location, (3) it cannot be a captive or cultivated organism, and (4) over 2/3rds of the people adding IDs to it have to agree about what species it is. It’s key to check back on your observations after you make them to see if anyone has added an identification or left a comment, possibly asking you to provide a bit more information about what you saw. Click here to learn more about Research Grade.
All observations will count for the CNC, even those that are not Research Grade.
Someone added an ID to my observation – should I agree with it? What if I don't agree with it?
An identification confirms that you can confidently identify it yourself compared to any possible lookalikes. Please do not simply “Agree” with an ID that someone else has made without confirming that you understand how to identify that taxon. If you agree with the ID without actually knowing the taxon, it may reach Research Grade erroneously.
If you disagree with an identification, the best thing to do is to add an identification of your own. It's helpful to provide a reason for disagreement in a comment. If you think you had the correct identification before the other person added theirs, then it’s useful to write a FRIENDLY comment explaining why you think your ID is correct.
I took so many photos during the CNC that there's no way I can get them all uploaded before the end of the day on May 3 – what should I do?
Relax! Luckily we have a week – up until May 10 at 9am YOUR LOCAL TIME , where you can work on uploading all the observations you made during April 30 – May 3. They’ll still get added to your city’s CNC project, as long as they were made in the April 30 – May 3 window.
Can I help identify what people found during the CNC? What if I'm not an expert in anything?
Yes! In the same way that anyone can be an observer, anyone can help identify observations. In iNaturalist, go to your city’s project, click “Observations” and you’ll see an “Identify” button pop up just below it. Clicking this will take you to the iNaturalist Identify page and show you all of your city’s observations that still need to be identified. From this page, you can restrict what it shows you by taxon, which helps if you know how to ID certain groups. If you’re not an expert in any group, you can still help by identifying the “unknowns” – the observations with no IDs at all! Click the “Filters” button and then select the dashed-line leaf with a question mark in it:
This will show you all the observations that are currently listed as “unknown.” It’s really helpful to go through these and add high-level IDs like “plants” or “insects” or “birds” or “fungi” – whatever you know about the organism – so people who do know how to ID these groups down to species can find them! Here’s a short video about using the Identify page.
No matter what, please only add an ID of which you can be reasonably sure – it’s fine if you don’t know what something is, and it’s fine to only add a genus or family or even kingdom level ID.
If you want to help identify observations from any city – great and thank you! Click this link to go to the Identify page for the entire City Nature Challenge.
