Hull City Nature Challenge - Day 1 - Avenues and University

 

In the last four days, I've participated in the City Nature Challenge, which took place in Hull for the first time. This is a worldwide event, which started in 2016 as a competition between Los Angeles and San Francisco, but has grown into a friendly participation event with a hint of competition inbuilt, as there is a Leaderboard!. A total of 485 cities and regions have taken part in 2023. The challenge consists of recording any animals, plants, fungi and other wildlife using the iNaturalist app from the 28th of April to the 1st of May. There has been a lot of planning for the event, with the North and East Yorkshire Data leading and coordinating the event and Hull City Council, Hull Natural History Society and other local organisations helping out and organising local walks and activities.

Friday 28th of April, day 1, started gloomy and drizzly, but I got up early and took a windy route to work via the Avenues and Jack Kaye Fields. Garden Snail feeding on fallen tulip petals, a Pholcus phalangioides in the porch and a Blackbird frantically collecting worms were the first records. A highlight was a Willow Warbler singing in my street. Fortunately the app allows to record sounds, which is brilliant if you don't have a camera on you, or if birds are hard to find and photograph. The recording worked a treat and I headed towards Jack Kaye fields photographing common birds along the way and wiping my camera and glasses every few minutes. At Jack Kaye I added Blackcap and Chiffchaff records and various wild flowers. The drizzly conditions made it really feel like a challenge.

Garden Snail, the first record of the challenge!

Blackbird with worm.

Woodpigeon looking a bit soaked.

I was very pleased to get this Wren, they can be challenging to photograph.

It was a work day, so I got on with marking essays. I joined some enthusiastic Rewild Cluster PhD students for a campus bioblitz at lunch time in the woodland area and the playing fields on campus. The highlight was to find a toad, the first I see this year. After this enjoyable break it was time to carry on with more marking!

Greenfinch at uni.

Herring Gull.

Recording at the University.

Magpie, an early boogie bird!

A Lime tree seedling, with distinctive cotyledons.

We did a fair amount of rummaging under bits and pieces, which gave us some interesting findings, like this spotty millipede, and of course, the toad (top shot).

On my walk home I popped to Pearson Park and recorded some of the birds there, including a coot with chicks, Mistle Thrush and a very busy Robin.

Coot parent with a chick looking out from underneath.

It was the end of day one, I had tallied 116 observations of 103 species. When checking the UK leaderboard we saw we were in 5th place for observations, which boded well and enthused us all!