A deer grazing in LaBagh Woods, a Cook County forest preserve, spring 2024. (Patty Wetli / WTTW News)

Your mission, Chicagoans, should you choose to accept it, is to get outside this weekend and notice the nature all around us.

It’s time again for the annual City Nature Challenge, a friendly global competition designed to showcase the biodiversity in urban yards, parks and nature preserves.

The challenge runs Friday through 11:59 p.m. Monday. To contribute to the effort, join the “City Nature Challenge 2024: Chicagoland Region” project on the iNaturalist platform. Then simply share your photos of plants, animals and fungi.

As a reminder, the focus is on “wild nature,” so photos of pets and houseplants don’t count.

In 2023, people in the Chicagoland region — which encompasses several counties, including parts of northwest Indiana and southeastern Wisconsin — made more than 8,000 observations of nearly 1,300 species.

Scientists and land managers tap into this data to better understand not just which species are present in an area, but where and when. The absence of observations of certain species can be equally telling.

Solo exploration is one way to participate in the challenge, but conservation organizations in the Chicago region are also hosting a bunch of group observation events. These range from bird walks along the Chicago lakefront, to a tree ID session at Kankakee Sands in Indiana, to a bioblitz along the Rock Run Greenway Trail in Joliet. 

Results, including regional and global totals, will be announced May 6.

Contact Patty Wetli: @pattywetli | (773) 509-5623 |  [email protected]