Join the Big City Bug Hunt

Who can take part?

Anyone aged 18 or over who is part of a community garden, orchard, city farm or other communal growing area in London can join.

If you are a private garden interested in joining, please get in touch with us before registering.

For garden leaders: sign up your community garden

Getting started is simple, just follow these two steps:

1. Register your garden
2. Sign up to iNaturalist and create an account by downloading the app or visiting www.iNaturalist.org (Tip: use your real name to help others verify your observations more easily.)

Then we’ll create your garden site as a collection project on iNaturalist and email you the details.

What happens next?

Download the Big City Bug Hunt Toolkit

Includes guides for running bug hunts, pond dipping, and tips on identifying insect life.

Start spotting!

Look for bugs as part of your usual gardening, or organise a more structured Bug Hunt activity.

Record what you find

Upload your observations to iNaturalist- it’s quick and easy.
All records within your garden boundary will automatically be added to your garden’s project and feed into the wider Capital Growth London-wide dataset.

Want to involve your growing community? Get a group together and follow our Pond dipping guide and Big City Bug Hunt guide.

For volunteers and visitors: start spotting

Anyone can take part! If you’re visiting a growing space and spot wildlife, you can contribute.

How to record your sightings

• Download the iNaturalist app and create an account
• Explore the space and take photos of what you find, hoverflies, ladybirds, bees, even newts
• Upload your observation and check the location is correct
• Your record will automatically be added to the garden’s project if you’re within its boundary

New to iNaturalist?

Credit: iNaturalist

• If you’re unsure how to get started, check out this video from iNaturalist on recording.
• To make your recordings high quality, check out this article for GIGL by Joss Carr: iNaturalist and City Nature Challenge 2026 – Making Your Observations Count.
• Here are some useful tips for iNaturalist beginners, and if you have any questions please contact lula.wattam@sustainweb.org

Important: Data licensing. By default, iNaturalist records are set to CC-BY-NC. To allow Capital Growth to use your data, please update your settings to CC0 (public domain), or CC-BY (Creative Commons Attribution). You can change this in your iNaturalist account settings.

Click for resources about iNaturalist & The Big City Bug Hunt