This year Oregon Ridge Nature Center took the challenge and dialed up our participation in the City Nature Challenge. We offered 5 programs where participants could learn to use iNaturalist and submit their findings to this worldwide competition.
- Life in the Pond (offered twice)
- Explore the Forest
- Ephemeral Wildflower Walk
- Birds on the Ridge
Now that the totals are in for the 2022 City Nature Challenge we can see biodiversity at Oregon Ridge Park, around Baltimore and around the world. If you were wondering… we identified 174 different species in just 4 days at Oregon Ridge. Thank you to everyone that participated, especially here at Oregon Ridge. We hope you will join us next year (April 29 thru May 1, 2023) as we try to top this year’s totals.
Baltmore Top 20 Documented Species
Baltmore Observations
ORNC Observations
Here’s the Stats for Baltimore
The observations that came from Oregon Ridge were credited to Baltimore.
Baltimore placed 51st out of 445 participating cities around the world!
Total # of observations: 7,920
Total # of observers: 721
Total # of species documented: 1,392
Top 5 observed plant species in order: Garlic Mustard 78, Mayapple 67, Ground-Ivy 57, Flowering Dogwood 53, Common Blue Violet 53
Top 5 observed animal species in order: American Robin 73, Gray Catbird 68, Mallard 65, Red-wing Blackbird 61, Northern Cardinal 57
Link to Baltimore Area results:
https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/city-nature-challenge-2022-baltimore-area
Link to species identified in the Baltimore area:
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?place_id=any&project_id=123592&verifiable=any&view=species
Oregon Ridge’s contribution to the Baltimore Stats!
Total # of observations: 407
Total # of observers: 36
Total # of species documented: 174
Top 5 observed plant species in order: Christmas Fern, Garlic Mustard, Mayapple, Ground-Ivy, Celandine Poppy
Top 5 observed animal species in order: Green Frog, Red-wing Blackbird, Eastern Newt, Wood Frog, Ruby-crowned Kinglet
Link to Oregon Ridge Park results:
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?nelat=39.4954925&nelng=-76.6738629&place_id=any&project_id=123592&swlat=39.4835721&swlng=-76.69813889999999&verifiable=any&view=species
City Nature Challenge World Results – 47 Countries; 445 Cities!
Total # of observations: 1,694,877
Total # of observers: 67,220
Total # of species documented: 50,176+
(Including more than 2,244 rare/endangered/threatened species.)
Most observed species: Common Dandelion
Link to all cities results:
https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/city-nature-challenge-2022
Congratulations to Michael Eversmier, the ORNC Naturalist who coordinated our participation in the competition this year. Michael tied for 8th place in the Baltimore Area for the most confirmed observations at exactly 100!