We are celebrating the 10th Anniversaries of the City Nature Challenge and of iNaturalist Canada. The 7th Annual Calgary City Nature Challenge was on April 25 to 28, 2025. So far, the previous year was most successful with 13,000+ observations. Other micro bioblitzes will happen all this summer. The iNaturalist platform is being used to help provide up to date records of the occurrence of the flora and fauna of Nose Hill with particular emphasis on the native vascular and nonvascular plants, fungi, birds, mammals, butterflies, moths, and bees.
Nature Calgary is a community that promotes the preservation of natural habitats, provides educational opportunities, and supports the collection of natural history observations. This year, the group is focusing their efforts on Nose Hill and Bowmont Park. We were contacted to encourage our members to take pictures of the Nose Hill biota (animal and plant life of a particular region, habitat, or geological period) and submit the photographs to https://inaturalist.ca/projects/nose-hill-park-bioinventory.
The goal is to publish an updated version of “The Green Book” in time for its 50th Anniversary and to monitor the changes in eleven Calgary Natural Areas. Whenever you visit a park, you can upload your observations to eBird and there are links to all these Parks at https://inaturalist.ca/. The project is being spearheaded by Nature Calgary and the Native Plants Council of Alberta – Calgary Chapter. In 1980 “The Green Book” was called “Calgary’s Natural Areas: A Popular Guide” as one of the City’s most extensive repositories of biodiversity. The first of its kind when data collection began in 1975, it was cited during the planning and creation of several of our Natural Parks. Many contributions provided by citizen scientists will add to the accuracy of the new publication and are greatly appreciated.
