City Nature Challenge 2025
Join the fun, free, Wildlife-Spotting Challenge!
From April 25th-28th, Birmingham and the Black Country (Dudley, Sandwell, Walsall & Wolverhampton) will be taking part in the 2025 City Nature Challenge - a fun, free, global challenge to see which city is wildest! Will you help us show the world how wild we REALLY are?
What is the City Nature Challenge?
The City Nature Challenge is an annual competition between cities all over the world to see how many wild species their citizens can spot over the space of four days. As well as being a fun activity, it generates useful species information that helps us to monitor the state of wildlife across our region and target our nature conservation activities to better protect wildlife.
During last year’s challenge we collectively managed make over 12,866 observations of a massive 1,340 different species! This result meant that Birmingham and the Black Country made more wildlife observations than any other UK city area and the 9th most of any city in Europe!
In 2025 there will be more cities than ever taking part, including our neighbours in Coventry, Solihull, Staffordshire and Warwickshire! We need you to help us beat our total in 2025!
How do I take part?
That's the easy bit - simply make a record of any wildlife you spot in Birmingham and the Black Country from April 25-28th, whether that's wildflowers in your garden or a list of birds from your local nature reserve. Every record counts and will help towards our total and move us up the global leader board!
The easiest way to make your records count is to use the free iNaturalist app or website. Simply take a photo of any plant or animal and the app's inbuilt software will help you to identify it whilst sending the record straight to us! You can watch a video guide to using iNaturalist below. Alternatively, you can email any records of wildlife you've spotted to enquiries@ecorecord.org.uk.
Want to host a CNC event?
If you are an organization, group or enthusiastic individual and you'd like to organise your own City Nature Challenge wildlife recording event between April 26th-29th, that would be amazing!
This could be as simple as planning to spend some time as a group, walking a route around your local green space and taking photos of any wildlife you see! If you already have an event planned for that weekend you could consider adding a quick City Nature Challenge recording session as part of it.
If you are planning an event, or have any questions, please let us know by emailing enquiries@ecorecord.org.uk as we would love to hear about it!
