Explore nature at Easter! | Brain City Berlin

Brain City Berlin

Discover and observe the flora and fauna while hunting for eggs: By means of citizen science projects, Berliners can help determine and preserve biodiversity in Brain City Berlin. An Easter walk can easily be combined with a good cause. Whether it’s a bee rally or rabbit scouting – here are our Easter favourites.

The common fire bug and the seven-spot ladybird topped the list of the most frequently observed insects and animals in Berlin in 2024. Garlic rocket came out on top among the plants. In total, Brain City Berlin recorded 17,944 observations in the global City Nature Challenge last year. 2,304 species were photographed, identified and located by participants over four days at the end of April 2024. This puts Berlin in first place nationwide and places it in the top 50 of 700 participating cities worldwide.

4 days of observing flora and fauna: City Nature Challenge 2025

This record needs to be broken at the City Nature Challenge 2025 just after Easter! From 25 to 28 April, Berliners can document the urban nature around them by photo or sound recording. This can be done on your own balcony as well as in the garden. For those who prefer to discover and research together with others: On 27 April, the Natural History Museum Berlin, together with the citizen science platform mit:forschen!, invites you to an open air event in the Tiergarten. The meeting point is at 11:00 at the entrance to Grosse Sternallee. No need to register in advance – just come along. However, you should have a smartphone in your pocket with the iNaturalist app installed.

Further Berlin events for the City Nature Challenge 25

What’s that fluttering there? Butterfly monitoring of the FU Berlin

Once downloaded, the iNaturalist app can also be used for other citizen science projects. For example, for the “butterfly monitoring” programme of the Freie Universität Berlin. As part of a Europe-wide research project, the FU Berlin has been recording the butterfly population in the areas of the “Blooming Campus” in Dahlem, Düppel and Lankwitz with the help of citizens since 2020. A particularly common fluttering inhabitant is the cabbage white butterfly.

To participate in the butterfly monitoring of the FU Berlin, please register in advance by email.

Scavenger hunt via app: “Wild Bee Rally”

The “Wild Bee Rally in Berlin-Mitte” takes you across the city. Questions will be asked about the life of wild bees in urban areas. For example: Why do wild bees go for Berlin? Where do they live here? And since when have there been bees on this planet? The digital scavenger hunt was developed as part of the joint project “More bees for Berlin – Berlin is blossoming!” by the Berlin Senate Department for Urban Mobility, Transport, Climate Action and the Environment and the German Wildlife Foundation. The project aims to promote wild bee habitats in Berlin and raise awareness for the protection of wild bees and other pollinating insects. The interactive city rally takes children and adults alike on a two-hour playful tour through the world of the capital’s bees. Have fun!

Download the free Actionbound quiz app here

Garden artwork: “Pollinator Pathmaker”

The digital bee rally starts “In Real Life” at the Pollinator Pathmaker on the forecourt of the Museum für Naturkunde Berlin. Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg’s blooming garden artwork was created in spring 2023. The artist invites visitors to view the world from the perspective of the pollinators as they walk through the garden object. The work of art was planted using a specially developed algorithm that also takes local conditions into account. If you would like to contribute to the protection of Berlin’s biodiversity yourself, you can create your own small version of the work of art via the pollinator.art website and replant it on your balcony. Connected to Pollinator Pathmaker, the Natural History Museum Berlin offers guided tours, workshops and events on the topics of insects in the city, wild bee conservation and sustainable garden design.

Guided tours of the Natural History Museum Berlin

Determine bathing water quality: with the CrowdWater app

With the current beautiful weather, an Easter outing often brings to mind early summer splashing around or swimming in one of Berlin’s many bathing lakes. Leisure fun can easily be combined with usefulness. The Berlin Centre of Competence for Water (KWB) is still looking for citizen researchers for the citizen science project with the somewhat unwieldy name “AD4GD”. They can volunteer to help determine the water quality of selected small lakes in Berlin. A database is to be created as part of the project. The aim is to maintain and improve the quality and availability of water in the lakes. Anyone wishing to take part should download the CrowdWater app integrated into the project beforehand.

Participate in AD4GD

Hare or rabbit? Observing and photographing bunnies

And what do the Berlin hares do at Easter? It is advisable to get up early to be able to observe Master Hare in the park or other urban open spaces. According to NABU Berlin, they are mainly out and about in the early hours of the morning – when there are fewer people on the streets. They also like to hop through the city at night in the light of the streetlights. However, the small differences between hares and rabbits must be taken into account when determining the species: The brown hare is larger and has long ears, whereas the rabbit’s ears are about as long as its head. And when it runs away, its white tail bobs. There are only a few brown hares left in Berlin. Anyone who sees one should therefore quickly take a photo or video of Master Hare and upload it to the platform Stadtwildtiere.de of the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research (Leibniz-IZW). More useful than Instagram - and much more sustainable.

Report hare observations on Stadtwildtiere.de

Author: Ernestine von der Osten-Sacken