The map
— sightings logged in the last 120 days
Hollow, dashed points are birds from eBird: 0 shown, the latest record of each species in each borough over the past month. Oxblood ones are the rarities eBird's reviewers flagged. Data provided by eBird (ebird.org), Cornell Lab of Ornithology.
Each point is one research-grade observation confirmed by the iNaturalist community. Mammals, reptiles and amphibians are shown in full; among birds, only the charismatic groups people notice (hawks, owls, herons, falcons, loons and cormorants) are plotted, since the full bird list runs to hundreds of species. Click a point for the photo and record.
How a sighting happens
Every dot on the map began with a person who stopped to look
Someone spots it
A birder with a long lens, a hiker, a parent at the playground, a ranger on rounds. Most records here come from ordinary New Yorkers, not scientists.
They log it
They photograph the animal and post it to iNaturalist, a free app run by the California Academy of Sciences and the National Geographic Society. The phone stamps the time and place automatically.
The crowd checks it
Other naturalists anywhere in the world review the photo and add their own identification, confirming the species or correcting a wrong guess.
It becomes a record
Once at least two-thirds agree on the species, with a photo and a date attached, the sighting turns “research grade” and lands on this map. Everything here has cleared that bar.
The rescue log further down works differently. Those come from the New York City Urban Park Rangers, the uniformed staff who respond when someone reports an animal in a park that is hurt, stranded or out of place. A ranger records the species, its condition and what happened next.
Notable lately
The rarest and most unexpected animals seen in the city recently. Click a card to see where it turned up.
Two different measures sit side by side here. Mammals, reptiles and amphibians are ranked by how few times they have ever been recorded in the city, which iNaturalist can answer because it holds most of that record. Birds cannot be ranked that way, so the ones marked "unexpected" are those eBird flagged as outside its expectations for that county, which can mean scarce, out of season or an unusual count.
The full census
— wild species on record, most-seen first. Click any animal to see it on the map.
When the Rangers get called
— animal responses logged by the Urban Park Rangers