NYC Nature lovers! Thank you for your excellent observations these past two days! Three more days to go! Let's keep up the good work!

Today was National Citizen Science Day and we had four events around the city at Greenbelt Nature Center, Central Park, Van Cortlandt Park, and the Lower East Side Ecology Center. Thank you to the Macaulay students who helped out at these events! There's still one more event on Tuesday at Washington Square Park hosted by @wspecoprojects (see the previous journal post for details).

It was also Native Plant Day. I saw some great native plants posted! Let's get more spring ephemerals in!

Extra thanks to our top 10 observers so far: @lisabrundage @susanhewitt @qingh @er1kksen @lisabg @elaphrornis @margot713 @kevparsonsproject and @plantago and @gquioan (tied)

It looks like it's going to be a gorgeous day tomorrow! Can't wait to see what we discover!

Today is the last day of the City Nature Challenge. I hope everyone has been having a great time outside in this beautiful weather! I know I have!

D.C. is currently beating us by about 500 observations. Let's rally today and get ahead of them! We have until midnight tonight.

Wow! What a great 5 days of being out observing nature!

I hope everyone found something exciting. I think my favorite observations were the spring ephemerals. I also found an Italian wall lizard, which was something I had not personally observed before! I'd love to hear what you all were most excited by. California Academy of Science would also like to know. If you have any particular observation that you think was remarkable, let me know! CAS is asking us to make a list so they can highlight them in their results press release.

The other thing we could use help with is identifications. There are quite a few unknowns that could be added to. I'll be working my way through them in the next two days, but any help is greatly appreciated! Special thanks to our top identifiers @tsn @susanhewitt @zihaowang @mickley @xyz @elaphrornis @curiousbynature @john8 @psweet. If anyone really wants to help with this task, let me know and I'll change your status in the project to 'curator'.

Thank you everyone!

City Nature Challenge participants! Thanks so much for your energy and enthusiasm for the City Nature Challenge this year – it was incredible to see so many people excited to document their local nature.

Please help us make the City Nature Challenge even better next year!

If you took part in the City Nature Challenge – whether you made 1 observation or 1000 – we’re hoping you’ll fill out this short (only 5 questions!) survey to let us know about your experience. All input is important and appreciated!

Link to survey: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/CNC2017

Thanks in advance!
Alison Young & Lila Higgins, City Nature Challenge coordinators
(California Academy of Sciences & Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County)