Staffordshire City Nature Challenge

From 26 - 29 April, take part in the City Nature Challenge by recording Staffordshire's wildlife!

The City Nature Challenge is an annual competition between cities all over the world to see how many wild species their citizens can spot over the space of four days. 2024 is the second year we are taking part in Staffordshire; help us make it count!

2023 marked Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent’s debut to the challenge and what a start! We ranked 9th in the UK, with 138 people making more than 3,900 observations of over 800 species. 

Save the date, and help us break last year's record! Our involvement is organised thanks to our colleagues at Staffordshire Ecological Records (SER). 

As well as an activity that gets us to see and engage with the wonderful wildlife in our towns, cities, and countryside it also provides organisations like SER and Staffordshire Wildlife Trust vital information that can help protect wildlife across the county. Species observations generated during the City Nature Challenge will help us map changes in the distribution and population of our wildlife.

Keep an eye on our social media channels and this webpage for more information closer to the day.

How Can I Take Part?

Any records of wildlife spotted in Staffordshire from 26  – 29 April will help towards our total and move us up the live global leader board.

The easiest way to make your records count is to use the free iNaturalist app or website.  Simply take a photo of a wild plant or animal,and the app's inbuilt software will help you to identify it! 

If you are part of a local community group and are interested in organise your own City Nature Challenge event, please let us know as we would love to hear about it! Our Local Groups have organised some events to help you get started with iNaturalist, you can find them here.

2. Help us to identify what’s been seen (30 April to 5 May)

Another way you might like to take part is to help others to identify what they’ve seen.  Once a photo is uploaded onto iNaturalist anyone can then help to identify what it is.  This can be a great way of helping to develop your own identification skills, but remember, it’s not always possible to identify a species from a photo!  The more photos we have confidently identified to species, the better!

We have until 5 May to upload our records to iNaturalist and to help identify them. 

As records are uploaded they will appear on our iNaturalist project page.

WHEN ARE THE RESULTS ANNOUNCED?

The results are announced in May.

The records are collated in the iNaturalist Recording System and the leader board is updated in real time!

Cities are ranked according to:

• Number of Observations
• Number of Species
• Number of Observers

The City Nature Challenge is organised globally by: California Academy of Sciences and the Los Angeles County Natural History Museum.

If you have any questions about the Staffordshire Nature Challenge, please drop an email to the team: 
info@staffs-ecology.org.uk

We'll be sending out some updates and reminders on the City Nature Challenge nearer to the time.  If you would like to receive these updates follow us on Facebook and Twitter