Cities across the region looked for wildlife. Here's what they found.

To enjoy nature, you might feel compelled to travel outside the confines of the city where you live. But look at the map of recent wildlife sightings on the community science platform iNaturalist and you’ll see dense clusters at the heart of some of the Chesapeake watershed’s major metropolitan areas. The annual City Nature Challenge, where anyone can report their urban wildlife observations, reveals that nature is truly all around us.

We’ve gathered just a sample of the 2021 City Nature Challenge’s impressive sightings from across the Chesapeake watershed—everything from plants and insects to mammals, birds and reptiles. Scroll through and see what wildlife your city has to offer!

Chesapeake cities rise to the challenge

The 2021 City Nature Challenge ran from April 30 to May 3, with participants able to report their findings through iNaturalist until May 9. The social platform makes it easy for anyone with a smartphone camera to participate, with the online community helping to identify unknown critters.

Several areas across the region were represented in this year’s competition. In Virginia: Charlottesville, greater Richmond and Hampton Roads each reported hundreds of species and participants. In Maryland: the Baltimore area, encompassing several neighboring counties, reported nearly 2,000 species. The Washington metro region, however, noted almost 3,000 species and over 1,000 people participating—enough to be ranked third among 419 cities taking part globally.

Nearly a third of Washington’s species count came from the Anacostia River watershed, where the Anacostia Watershed Society (AWS) led several events to garner even more participation than last year, an effort that feeds into its ongoing iNaturalist project that records biodiversity along the Anacostia River. In addition to land-based observations for the challenge, the nonprofit was able to obtain a permit to catch and release fish and other aquatic animals living in the watershed.

“Participants had a lot of fun netting fish and crayfish,” said Jorge Bogantes Montero, a stewardship program specialist with AWS, in an email. “They were like kids again!”

Though it’s too late to participate in this year’s challenge, iNaturalist is a year-round platform for learning new species and contributing to a global community science effort. And to help you explore you can use our website to find an organization in your area.

Baltimore

Washington, D.C., Metro Area

Charlottesville

Greater Richmond

Hampton Roads