Blogs from the Natural History Museum
Inspiring a love of the natural world
Our ground-breaking partnership with Amazon Web Services (AWS) is set to turbo-charge our community science programme. But what does this really mean and what’s changing? We sat down with Lucy Robinson (Citizen Science Manager) to ask all the important questions.
Continue reading “Our community science programme gets a boost from AWS”
A round of applause for everyone that took part in City Nature Challenge this year! Between 29 April and 2 May, over 300 community scientists across London recorded a grand total of 4,436 observations of 1,087 species! You can view everybody’s findings in the iNaturalist project.
Thanks are also due to the 338 naturalists in London and around the world that helped to identify the observations made during City Nature Challenge, validating over half of the observations in London to research grade records. With their quality assurance, these records can be used for the study of global urban biodiversity and conservation efforts.
Continue reading “City Nature Challenge 2022: Results and Highlights | Community Science”
A big thank you from the Citizen Science team to everyone who took part in City Nature Challenge this year! Between 30th of April and 3rd May over 300 people in London recorded 4,721 observations of 963 species – you can view everyone’s finds in the iNaturalist project.
Continue reading “City Nature Challenge 2021: results and highlights | Citizen Science”
There are so many ways to take part in City Nature Challenge it can be difficult to know where to start if you are new to observing nature. Observations of any living things count towards City Nature Challenge but here are six species that Museum scientists and friends are particularly interested in. If you see any of these let us know by taking a photograph and uploading to iNaturalist. Photographs and identification tips are also available as a downloadable Species to Spot guide (PDF 330KB).
Continue reading “City Nature Challenge: Species to Spot | Citizen Science”
The City Nature Challenge returns to London for a fourth year!
Over the last year many of us have had the chance to explore our local areas like never before. What have you spotted on your daily walks? Have you seen plants popping up in unexpected places, or is there a particular tree that you have watched transform through the seasons, or an unusual insect you have observed in your nearest park?
Whatever it is, we want you to share what you have seen and join this year’s City Nature Challenge.
Continue reading “Take the City Nature Challenge! | Citizen Science”
by Hana Merchant
Hana Merchant, a volunteer in the Museum’s Wildlife Garden, shares her top tips for reconnecting with nature, including rewilding your phone, wild reading and wild activities.
Continue reading “Our natural world and how to reconnect with its wonders”
A big thank you to everyone who took part in the Plant Club BioBlitz! Over two weeks we made 725 observations of 313 species across the UK. We had observations from car parks in Portsmouth, pavements in Leeds and London, people’s gardens, and even clifftops in Cornwall and the Outer Hebrides. You can view all our observations on iNaturalist.
Continue reading “Thanks for taking part in the Plant Club BioBlitz! | Citizen Science”
Sometimes plants can be easy to miss. But when we take time to look a little closer, we see how exciting and important they really are!
As part of the Museum’s Family Festival, the Citizen Science Team invite you to join the Plant Club virtual BioBlitz, to take a closer look at plants and discover which grow near you. Look closely at the shapes and textures of leaves and flowers and use the resources on our BioBlitz webpage to help you to tell different plants apart.
Continue reading “Discover plants near you with the Plant Club BioBlitz!”
What were your highlights from the City Nature Challenge this year? Although I missed taking part in a public BioBlitz at the Natural History Museum, I enjoyed my own mini BioBlitz in my little London garden – making 99 observations and managing to identify 80 different species. My favourite find was a tiny Bethylid wasp which was the first one I have ever seen. These wasps are just a few millimetres long and are known as ‘flat wasps’ because of their squashed appearance. They are parasitoids of beetle larvae or moth caterpillars.
Continue reading “Highlights from City Nature Challenge 2020 | Citizen Science”
Have you seen any bee-flies in your garden? Bee-flies look rather like bees but are actually true flies (Diptera). They have round, furry bodies and a long proboscis (tongue) held out straight. The proboscis can sometimes cause alarm but they do not bite or sting and just use it to drink nectar from spring flowers, often while hovering. Flowers with long nectar tubes such as primroses and lungworts are particular favourites, and bee-flies are likely to be important pollinators of these.
