City Nature Challenge returns for 2022

As Spring returns to the region, The Natural History Consortium is asking people across Bristol and Bath to get outside and take pictures of wildlife to help our understanding of how wildlife is doing after two years of Covid-19 restrictions.

The Challenge is a global event in which people are invited to take pictures of wildlife in their local communities to help scientists and conservationists build up a picture of the nature that is flourishing in urban areas. It’s free to take part and open to everyone.

Organisers are asking participants to keep a special eye out for the dotted bee-fly, a popular pollinator that can be found around Bristol backyards in late April. It’s the first species in a city-wide “Wildlife Index” that will use City Nature Challenge as a chance to start building up a catalogue of our most important species.

How to take part in City Nature Challenge:

1. Download the iNaturalist app (it’s free!) and take a photograph of nature in your local area, whether that’s a tree, plant or insect or animal, and upload. 
2. Not a fan of apps? You can upload any photo through the website at iNaturalist.org
3. Not sure what you’ve photographed? Upload it anyway – a network of experts will review and update the information so you can log back in later and learn more about what has been spotted in your local area. 

Volunteers will be running free nature walks, and pop-up events to help people to take part in popular locations such as Queen Square, Tyntesfield, Wild Place and Bath City Farm.

The information collected on iNaturalist is available to individuals, organisations and businesses across the world and used for a huge variety of purposes including supporting conversation projects, tracking how nature impacts on the health of communities and finding out how new developments are affecting the natural world. 

Savita Willmott, Chief Executive of The Natural History Consortium, which is organising the event in Bristol and Bath said: “The brilliant thing about the City Nature Challenge is that you can take part anywhere, whether it’s your local park, favourite green space, in your garden or on your balcony.  You don’t have to be an expert, just be out and about over the four days of the Challenge sharing what you see.  It’s an opportunity to contribute to a really important global study, as well as helping to support work taking place locally.”

Find out more and get invovled: http://www.citynaturechallenge.org.uk