City Nature Challenge 2024

Let’s show off how amazing our cities can be for wildlife this spring!

City Nature Challenge is an annual four-day global 'bioblitz' nature hunt, to assist in recording and protecting wildlife in urban areas. Every year, cities all over the world take part in friendly and fun competition to see who can gather the most observations of nature and find the most species.

A global event

In City Nature Challenge 2023, over 1.8 million observations were made of over 57,000 species with over 66,000 people taking part across the world - an astonishing collective effort that we can eclipse in 2024 with your support.

For 2024, individuals, families, and community groups in over 400 cities globally are invited to look for nature in their gardens, parks, public spaces or homes and join this worldwide effort to record as much wildlife as possible between 26 - 29 April 2024.

It’s simple, fun and anyone can join in

All you need is a smartphone and the iNaturalist mobile app. Share a photo with the app and it will assist you to identify and record the species you find. Each species record is known as an observation, and all observations made during the event in participating areas will count towards City Nature Challenge.

You can then join  other nature enthusiasts to work together to formally identify the records before they are shared for inclusion in local and national wildlife databases, which support nature conservation efforts.

How to take part

All you need to get started is a smartphone with the FREE iNaturalist app downloaded, or a camera to take photos of what you see and upload to their website later. Bristol Natural History Consortium have prepared a simple guide to using iNaturalist (PDF 464KB).

• See it
  Find nature: during the event, explore in and around your home, in local parks and road verges, on the way to school or work, gardens or courtyards - anywhere you might find living organisms.
• Snap it
  Take a picture: of wild plants, animals, or fungi that you find. If they are not wild, for example domestic animals or planted flowers, be sure to mark them as captive/cultivated.
• Share it
  Share your observations: record what you find by clicking ’observe’ or ‘+’ on the iNaturalist app or upload your photos to uk.inaturalist.org.
• Tallying the results
  In the week after the event everyone's observations are identified and counted. You can help to identify other people’s wildlife observations and learn more as others identify your wildlife observations.

The worldwide competition results will be revealed at www.citynaturechallenge.org on Monday 6 May 2024.

Activities in London

Organisations across London will be running events as part of City Nature Challenge 2024. See the map below for more information.

If you are interested in organising an event in 2024, please email Jessica Wardlaw (j.wardlaw@nhm.ac.uk) or Ben Town (ben.town@nhm.ac.uk) for more information and resources.

Map

How will my observations help science?

The information collected will create a valuable snapshot of the variety of wildlife that lives in cities. Knowing what species live in cities, and where they are, helps us to study and protect them. Documenting nature on a city-wide scale allows us not only to learn about the variety of nature in cities, but also about the sustainability of valuable ecosystems that thrive in cities.

With the world's wildlife facing unprecedented declines, and as urban areas expand, it has never been more important to make our towns and cities healthy and sustainable places to live side-by-side with nature. The only way to do that is for people to team up - including you!

Resources for educators

We encourage schools to take part. The City Nature Challenge organising team has produced some resources to support teachers and educators.

City Nature Challenge around the UK

Cities and regions across the whole UK have signed up to take part in the Challenge. Check out the UK Leaderboard  to find out which cities are taking part. During the event, you’ll be able to watch live results from cities involved and see which city has recorded the highest number of species and number of people taking part.

Your city or region isn’t competing this year? No problem! Any iNaturalist wildlife sightings during the event will still count towards the UK records and help fill in the map of where nature is living in your region. Or you can join the iNaturalist global project.

About City Nature Challenge    

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

London partners

The Museum’s Community Science team is leading organisations around London participating in City Nature Challenge.

We thank our partners:

• The Field Studies Council
• Royal Parks
• City of London Corporation
• Greenspace Information for Greater London (GIGL)
• The Conservation Volunteers
• Zoological Society of London (ZSL)
• Royal Horticultural Society
• London National Park City
• London Environmental Educators Forum