With the GSB done and dusted for a second year, Sydney put in another fantastic showing, finishing up with ~3500 observations of almost 1600 species, contributed by over 230 observers. All of these numbers are big improvements on last year's event, with +600 observations, +420 species, and +80 observers! This last stat is probably the most exciting for me; that the number of observers increased by 50% in just one year is great to see given one of the GSB's main focuses is to drive greater participation in biodiversity citizen science. Compared to the inaugural GSB in 2020, we maintained our impressive position of 5th spot overall for most species seen (even with an extra 100+ cities/regions participating!), and surged into 2nd place for number of observers.
The most observed species was the flannel flower, followed by the large flying duck orchid and the bluestriped goatfish. Across the top 10 most observed species, we had four flowering plants, two fishes, two birds, a lizard and a spider.
Here are some of the highlights:
Two powerful owls (listed as Vulnerable in NSW) seen by @deanmc.
A female gang-gang cockatoo (listed as Endangered in NSW) hanging out in a tree hollow, seen by @katieoconnor.
A koala (one of only 34 observed in Greater Sydney on iNat!) seen by @catherinegrenfell.
A fern-leaf spider flower in bloom (a Near Threatened species restricted to the Sydney Basin), seen by @porcoespinho15.
A stunning macro shot of a flying peacock spider by @adri_losso.
We also had three observations of species that had never been uploaded to iNaturalist before!
One of these was Gigantowales chisholmi, a stunning native millipede seen by @helensmith.
The other two were insects I was lucky enough to find myself. Both of these were assassin bugs:
Nebriscus pupus, found washed up on a beach.
Veledella raptrix found at night in an urban bushland reserve.
This is just a small sample of the awesome observations uploaded for Sydney, so if anyone has any others they would like to see featured here, please let me know and I'll add them to the post.
A huge thanks is also needed for all the users who helped identify our observations; without them, many observations would not have made it to species. The top identifiers for this year were @cynthia_c @bwjone432155 @adrian2370 @biniek-io @ben_travaglini @eschlogl @marcoduretto @cesdamess @george_seagull @sofiazed1 @predomalpha @mmmr91 @pennywort_man @spyne
Everyone can be very proud of their efforts; here's to an even bigger and better GSB next year!