The City Nature Challenge is a global event where people in over 500 City Regions worldwide work together to record as much wildlife as possible. It is a four-day challenge, this year running from Friday 26 – Monday 29 April.

There are three categories in the challenge:

1. Number of observations made
2. Number of species recorded
3. Number of people taking part and making observations

Last year, across Chester West and Cheshire, 2000 observations were made covering 521 different species. We placed 12^th out of 19 UK cities taking part – we are hoping to beat that this year and we need your help. Learn more about the City Nature Challenge.

We will be making recordings of Wildlife found on campus and along the canal and greenway. We’ll be on the lookout for birds, bugs, bees, spiders, plants, funghi, mammals, wild plants and anything else we can find. It is useful if you have a smartphone or a digital camera, but this is not essential.

We will start the session with a briefing of how to use the iNaturalist app, and then we will walk around campus making as many observations as possible. We’ll also go along the greenway and the canal, as lots of wildlife can be found here too.

How to get involved: Sign up is not essential, but if you register your interest in advance, we will send you a reminder and some extra information about the iNaturalist app in advance or how to get involved with just a camera / no tech.

Register your interest on the Volunteer Hub

Meet us by the amazon lockers outside Grosvenor House, Exton Park, on Fri 26th April at 1:30pm and stay for as long as you like.

There’s lots of other wildlife-recording events happening across Chester and Cheshire-West, and you can also just go out yourself across the 4 day period and make your own observations on iNaturalist.