HARLINGEN — The Lower Rio Grande Valley, when it comes to nature, is mighty competitive.
Naturalists from Cameron, Hidalgo, Starr and Willacy counties combined their formidable observational forces to finish 10th in number of species, 15th in most observations and 26th for most observers in the annual City Nature Challenge 2018 bio blitz competition.
The global competition pitted the Valley against 67 cities worldwide including such major metropolitan areas as San Francisco (first overall), Dallas/Fort Worth, Washington, D.C., Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Gujarat, India and Manaus, Brazil. All were competing in three categories — most observations, most species and most participants.
City Nature Challenge 2018 was held from April 27 to 30 and then from May 1 through 3. The participants — naturalists, scientists, adults and kids — were tasked with recording observations over the first period and uploading them to the free iNaturalist app. The second period was set aside to identify all the plants and animals recorded in the first period.
Observations here in the Valley totaled 8,760, the number of species was 1,660 and 195 people participated.
Eight of the top 10 Valley scorers were members of the Texas Master Naturalists.
Joseph Connors, an aficionado of close-up photography of butterflies, spiders and flies, contributed the most observations to the Valley team with 871 and the most species with 323.
“Growing up, my parents took us to the Santa Ana National Wildlife Refuge often where I always used my dad’s film camera,” Connors said via email from Louisiana, where he was doing yet more photography.
“I really got into nature photography after I got my first digital camera in 2006 and started posting to Flickr. I got hooked on macro photography because spiders held still and were easy to find even in my backyard. They are still my favorite subject.”
Friends of a feather
Despite the fact City Nature Challenge keeps score, Connors said one of the most satisfying things about the event was the camaraderie he found within the Valley group of participants.
“On the first day of the City Nature Challenge, I went to the McAllen Nature Center about an hour before the night hike started and took pictures of everything I could find,” he added. “Once I got all those uploaded, I found I was pretty far into first place in our region. I didn’t start out trying to get first place. I just wanted to help get our LRGV species numbers up for this challenge. On Saturday and Sunday, I got messages on Facebook and in person that really encouraged me to keep going.
“Then the friendly competition between those of us at the top encouraged all of us to keep it up,” Connors said. “I know or have met most of those at the top of the list. We each helped the others identify what we knew.”
Seth Welliver of McAllen, a plant expert with a passion for butterflies and how to attract them, recorded 405 observations along with 281 species.
Texas Master Naturalist Anita Westervelt was third for most observations in the region with 337.
Rankings
• 10th — number of species
• 15th — most observations
• 26th — most observers
• 67 — cities worldwide
• Observations — 8,760
• Number of species — 1,660
• People participating —195
