City Nature Challenge 2018: Austin's Journal

Greetings to all of you in Austin.
The City Nature Challenge is around the corner. It starts at 12:01AM this Friday and goes until midnight on Monday. I know that many of you are planning events for this year’s City Nature Challenge in the Austin area. This is going to be an exciting year and I know that we have a great chance of being on top of the leaderboard.
After Monday, April 30, begins the real work. Verification of all the observations. If you can help, it would be great. We are planning to hold three evening verification gatherings May 1 – 3 at the Schlotzsky’s at 218 S. Lamar in Austin each evening from 5:30PM until 8:00PM. I will be there on Tuesday and Thursday evening and Tania Homayoun will be there on Wednesday.
We could really use your expertise. We hope to get most if not all of our Austin observations to research grade.
Marsha May
Wildlife Diversity Program
Texas Parks and Wildlife Department
4200 Smith School Road
Austin, TX 78744

Office: 512.389.8062
Cell: 512.547.9730
marsha.may@tpwd.texas.gov

Good morning from Los Angeles! I wanted to address a concern that many people have expressed about adding observations to projects. Under the new project system, you don't need to manually add your observations to the project - it actually won't allow you to. Any observations made within the boundary of the project will automatically be added. Don't worry if you don't see them right away; it may take a few minutes. Rest assured, they will be counted!

I'm sorry for the confusion and frustration about this matter. Please share this with your project participants and let them know that their observations are being counted!

I wish you all a good day of bioblitzing.

-Amy

Amy Jaecker-Jones
Coordinator, Community Science Program - City Nature Challenge
Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County
ajaecker@nhm.org

Join the City Nature Challenge April 27-20! citynaturechallenge.org