A really fun and exciting event will be taking place in the city from April 26-29: The City Nature Challenge. This is a bioblitz in which participants will attempt to document all wild living things inside the city limits.

Over 160 cities are competing in three categories: Number of species recorded, number of observations made, and number of participants. It will be hard to match some of the tropical locations for species diversity, but Calgary can certainly compete in the number of participants and observations.

The Challenge uses the iNaturalist website to record and identify wildlife. As a participant, all you have to do is take a photo of a species and upload it to the website on your desktop or smartphone. The international community of iNaturalist users help to identify the species.

The Calgary effort is being organized by Matthew Wallace. See the Calgary website here and read about the competition and upcoming events. The first workshop, where you can learn how to use the phone app and use it in the field, is coming up at Pearce Estate on April 13. Here is the link to the Facebook page which lists all the workshops.

The iNaturalist app and website are very easy to use. You can begin making observations right away, and continue to use the app anywhere and any time to contribute to our knowledge of species distribution and diversity.

I will post more information about this challenge soon on Birds Calgary but please go to the website and read all about it.

Here is my latest upload to iNaturalist. This White-tailed Jackrabbit was sitting by our mailboxes so I snapped a photo with my phone, and ten seconds later it was on the iNaturalist site. Easy!