Earlier this year, one of our City Councillors brought forward an idea to participate in the City Nature Challenge. This challenge invites us to get outside, explore the natural world around us and see what plant or animal species are living in your neighbourhood, at your local park or near your favourite trail.  

When presented with the idea, we jumped in and started planning right way! This challenge offers us two incredible opportunities. First, to bring together nature lovers in Kingston to explore our local greenspaces, and second, the opportunity to gain an understanding of the species that call our city home.  

I hope you will join the fun and help us contribute to an international database on biodiversity. Your valuable observations will give us insights into the health of our local green spaces and will contribute to broader global research and conservation efforts. 

How to participate  

To participate in the challenge, take photos of nature in your backyard, local park and across the city and then upload them to iNaturalist from April 28 to May 1. 

1. Find wildlife! It can be any wild plant, animal or any other evidence of life found in Kingston. 
2. Take a picture or record a sound! Be sure to note the location of the critter or plant. 
3. Share your observations through iNaturalist.  

All observations uploaded in Kingston during the challenge will be automatically included in the final species count. Only observations made from April 28 – May 1 will count for the challenge.

How to share your observations 

Observations are records of any living thing you have discovered during your exploration! This includes plants, animals and insects, along with evidence like tracks, nests or sounds. 

All observations should be shared on iNaturalist, a popular nature app that can be used on your phone, tablet or desktop. iNaturalist provides some easy-to-follow instructions to get you started but to give you a head start, here’s what to do (courtesy of the City Nature Challenge organizers!) 

1. Make sure your phone’s location services are turned on for your camera and for iNaturalist— usually accessed through the security settings on your phone. 
2. Head outside, open up the iNaturalist app and find an organism you’d like to make an observation of. 
3. Plants are a good place to start since they won’t run away from you! While you can make observations of anything, try to look for organisms that are wild—so plants growing on their own without human help, or non-domesticated animals, like insects or birds. 
4. Tap the button to make a new observation and choose “Take Photo” when the options pop up. 
5. Take your first photo. After you take the photo, you’ll have the option of retaking it if you’d like (if it’s blurry, for example).
6. Once you have a photo you like, you’ll be taken back to the observation screen. Notice that iNaturalist will have automatically populated the date and time, as well as your current location. 
7. From the observation screen, you can add more photos to the observation, for example, if you’d like to get a close-up of the flower or plant, or the leaves. 
8. Once you’re satisfied with your photos, tap the box that says “What did you see? View suggestions.” If you have a network or wi-fi connection, this will link you to the computer vision on iNaturalist, which will try to suggest possible identifications based on your photograph and your location. 
9. The “Top Suggestions” should say that the species are “Visually Similar/Seen Nearby” – these are good choices to pick from. You can pick a suggestion from iNaturalist, or you can type in your own identification using the search bar, at any level of detail you know (e.g., “California poppy” or “Plants” are both fine to use as an ID!) 
10. Once you’ve added an identification, you’ll be taken back to the observation screen, where you should save the observation. Once you save it, it will be uploaded to iNaturalist, where the community will work to confirm or refine the identification. 
11. Now you’re ready to make a new observation! 

As part of the collaboration with Canadian Wildlife Federation (CWF), 42 cities have united to represent Canada in the collaborative global competition to see which community can track the highest number of wildlife observations.  

I’m looking forward to joining you all in the challenge to discover nature in our wonderful City. With the threat of biodiversity loss growing every day, documenting local wildlife is one small action we can all take to protect our future. 

If you’re ready to take climate action and support biodiversity, you can start by reimaging your lawn. The 1000 Islands Master Gardeners have declared 2023 the year of the biodiverse garden, and along with this declaration, are actively sharing incredible resources to help guide you through naturalizing your lawn and building a resilient garden. I invite you to take a look at their educational blogs, attend a webinar with a Q&A and get ready to take a pledge for biodiversity.