Diario del proyecto City Nature Challenge 2021: Costa Mesa-Orange County

Hello everyone! How did your first day go? Of course there are still 3.25 hours left in Day One--does anyone have mothing plans tonight?--but I'd like to highlight a few of today's cool observations.

How about this Spiny Sand Star (Astropecten armatus) seen by @alanarama3? The species only has 137 observations on iNaturalist!

While we're seeing stars, here's a Bat Star (Patiria miniata) seen by @noisylittlescientists

This Greater Roadrunner (Geococcyx californianusa) is making bird photography look easy for @nathantaxel

I'm excited to see what you all find over the weekend! Happy iNatting everyone.

We have about 3 hours left in the observation period. It's dark now, so probably most of you are done taking photos. Remember, if you have taken photos, but not uploaded them yet, you still have until May 9th to upload.

Here are some highlights from the past few days:

This beautiful Cellophane Bee seen by @bugornot

This very artistic photo of a dolphin seen by brand-new user @tereza_bellodi --Welcome to iNaturalist Tereza!

This eye-catching leaf gall (Diplolepis polita) seen by @mooseandsquirrel

An opossum stand-off captured by @mcow1

A Wavy Turban sea snail (Megastraea undosa) found by @ari10

Not to play favorites here, but I'm calling on @bugornot again for this incredibly shiny wasp that seems to be in genus Chrysis

We botanists are excited about this extremely rare daisy found by @silversea_starsong

My personal favorite species of jumping spider was seen by @kim03 ...yes even a plant person like me has a favorite species of spider

And last but not least, Gray Flycatcher by @bettina-eastman

I hope everyone had a great time! Up next is the identification period, in which we will try to tally how many species were spotted. You can try your hand at identification here. We have many observations with no ID at all--aka "unknowns"--so even if you have no expertise, help us out by giving these photos basic identifications such as "Plantae" (plants), "Aves" (birds), "Insecta" (insects), and so on. It will help the database search filters pick up the images and show them to experienced identifiers.

This is it--the last day to identify observations or upload your backdated photos. Right now we have 3,269 observations of about 968 species, contributed by 313 observers. These numbers may go up slightly, but more than likely they are very close to our final standings. Of course this year, due to COVID-19 we are promoting more of a collaborative atmosphere than a competition, but it is still cool to look at the other teams for perspective. In terms of observation numbers, we are between Hamilton (near Toronto, Canada) and Geelong (near Melbourne, Australia.) Worldwide, the City Nature Challenge has gathered over 1.2 million observations of almost exactly 45,000 species, contributed by not quite 60,000 observers.

Here are some highlights from the observations uploaded since Monday:

This Southern Pacific Rattlesnake seen by @peter536

This up close and personal shot of a Stripe-eyed Lagoon Fly by @silversea_starsong

This Bernardino Blue buttefly seen by @bedgell

One of our common spring wildflowers, a Parry's Phacelia, captured by @lunazhang

And finally, the perfect observation for Mother's Day, a mother Canada Goose, photographed by @naturesmase

Thank you everyone for participating and we hope to see you next year!