ajohn

CNC - Teaser Poster.pdf (638.01 KB)

CNC - Teaser Poster.pdf (638.01 KB)
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1/04/2019 11:56

Some of you may remember the City Nature Challenge last year. It was the first time that Hong Kong took part and we had a great result, finishing third (globally) in terms of number of species observed, 7th for the number of observers, and 8th for the number of observations. A big thank you to those who took part last year (see here for previous thread http://www.hkbws.org.hk/BBS/view ... BNature%2Bchallenge)

Hong Kong will take part again this year. Let's see if we can beat last year's results.

The event will take place from April 26th (Friday) to 29th (Monday). All you need to do is look for any wildlife and submit it using the iNaturalist app. For birds, sound recordings work as well as photographs, so listen to what's around as well as looking.

Good luck!

For more details, check out the website for the project at this link:
https://www.inaturalist.org/proj ... enge-2019-hong-kong

ajohn

I should add that the organisers are aware of a problem we had with the boundary at Mai Po mudflat last year. This should have been fixed, so that this year any sightings on the Hong Kong side of Deep Bay should get included.

irsychan

Quote:

Original posted by ajohn at 1/04/2019 11:59
I should add that the organisers are aware of a problem we had with the boundary at Mai Po mudflat last year. This should have been fixed, so that this year any sightings on the Hong Kong side of Deep ...

Well done, John!

By the way, better let everyone know that only photos of wild plants and animals etc. are counted.  Last year, I have a lot of plant photos taken in the urban area, e.g. along central reserve of road, within a landscaped area, etc. and all these were not counted.  That is, if the photo shows any evidence that the plant is planted by human, it wouldn't be counted.

ajohn

Quote:

Original posted by irsychan at 1/04/2019 17:14

Well done, John!

By the way, better let everyone know that only photos of wild plants and animals etc. are counted.  Last year, I have a lot of plant ...

Yes, that's right. The main aim of the challenge is to record wild plants and animals. Captive and cultivated species are not included (otherwise people could go around Ocean Park or the flower market!) See the attached for details.

Remember that if you are only able to visit a planted area, there may still be some wild species to look for - maybe wild plants among the plantation, insects visiting flowers or birds singing nearby. These would all count towards the challenge.

ajohn

As a reminder to all, the City Nature Challenge is next weekend. Hopefully the weather will be more settled than this weekend!

For those that have not taken part before, I have attached some details of how to download iNaturalist and submit your sightings. I hope you will think about joining in this year.

Good luck to everyone, I hope you find some interesting species next weekend!

ajohn

Today is your last chance to get out and record your sightings for the City Nature Challenge. The recording period ends at midnight tonight.

Hong Kong is doing well so far - top ten in all three measures, and 6th for the number of species recorded. We could still move up as more observations are submitted and more species identified. I personally have a lot of photos still to upload which should push the total up further.
The leaderboard is at this link: https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/city-nature-challenge-2019

Adding sightings should be straight-forward. Once you have signed up for iNaturalist you can add your observations through the mobile app or online. You can add photos, video or sound recordings. These could be of anything - not just birds but also other animals, plants, fungi, etc. (wild species only, not pot plants or caged animals).

Any observations between 00:00 on Friday 26th and 23:59 on Monday 29th (tonight) count. The final scores are announced on 5th May, so you still have a few days to sort through photos and add sightings you have made this weekend.

ajohn

I'd like to say a huge thank you to everyone who took part last weekend.

Hong Kong has done really well again this year - as it stands now (4pm on 4th May) 1,125 people have submitted a total of 30,914 observations representing 3,560 species.
Compared to more than 150 cities globally, we are in 8th place for the number of observers, 9th for the number of observations and 2nd for the number of species. This species total is really impressive to me - the only city ahead of Hong Kong is Cape Town, famous for its high biodiversity. We have really shown that Hong Kong is a great city for biodiversity!

If you do have any observations from last weekend (26th-29th April) that you have not yet submitted, please do so this weekend. We are still sorting through identifications and the final result is not announced until Monday morning.