Greater Austin City Nature Challenge Is Here!
It’s time for Greater Austin City Nature Challenge! Are you ready to make observations on iNaturalist this weekend? There are a lot of ways to participate and help out Greater Austin on the global leaderboard. If you come to one of our events, you don’t even have to use iNaturalist yourself. You can partner up with someone else and help find cool stuff.
Local Events
Join our friends in Capitol Area Master Naturalists, Goodwater Master Naturalists, Travis Audubon, Central Texas Mycological Society and more with events running all day, all weekend, all over the area. All of these events count as volunteer time. Log in VMS under Field Research – Other. Travel time counts.
BCTXMN Events
We’re hosting two events this weekend. At both events, the goal is take photos of anything and everything living and wild that catches your eye. Both locations have several habitats to choose from. Before the end of the event, we’ll sit together, maybe have a snack, and upload our observations to iNaturalist.
If you don’t want to do the whole iNaturalist thing yourself, you’re more than welcome to come anyway. You can partner up with someone else who can take photos and upload observations, and all you have to do is help find interesting things.
All of these events count as volunteer time. Log in VMS under Field Research – Other. Travel time counts.
Saturday 4/25, 2-4pm: Champion Park
3830 Brushy Creek Road in Cedar Park. Meet at the low rock walls at the front of the park.
Accessibility: easy – you can choose from paved paths, crushed gravel paths, and smooth dirt trails. This location is a good choice for kids. There will probably be a lot of other people enjoying the park at the same time.
Restrooms: yes, standard park restrooms
Highlights: habitats include a large creek, open wildflower meadow, and closed canopy juniper/oak woods. The creek is full. Great variety of birds and pollinators, and good potential for herps.
Sunday 4/26, 8-10am: Cypress Creek Park
3601 Bullick Hollow Road in Austin. Meet at the picnic tables by the boat ramp.
Accessibility: moderate – some terrain is rocky and uneven. Wear long pants and good shoes or boots.
Restrooms: yes, portapotties
Highlights: habitats include the creek, riparian areas, large pond, and open rocky areas. The creek is high and has beautiful waterfalls right now. Great variety of wildflowers and insects. The park will probably be quiet and there won’t be a lot of people around.
On Your Own
You can earn volunteer time for making observations anywhere you want on your own time, any time between Friday April 25 and Monday April 27.
Log time in VMS under Field Research – Other. In the description, mention Greater Austin City Nature Challenge. Include the location you were at. In 15 minute increments, list how much time you spent in the field and how much time you spent entering the observations with the app or website (if you did the data entry at home or otherwise not out in the field). For example, you could say “collected observations at St. Edwards Park for Greater Austin City Nature Challenge – 45 minutes at the park, 15 minutes entering data at home.” Note that if you’re on your own and not attending an official event, travel time does not count.
The big thing to remember is that your observations must be “verifiable” on iNaturalist. That means the organisms are wild (not captive or cultivated) and the observations includes photos and/or audio, date and time, and location.
The good news is that if you take the photos with your phone and upload them by creating observations with the iNaturalist app, the date and time and location are all taken care of. The app will fill them in for you. You’re also welcome to take photos with a camera and/or use the iNaturalist website, but if you’re new to iNaturalist, the app is probably easier.