Wildlife near Irvine, CA
Irvine keeps an unusual amount of open space for a planned city, ringed by preserves in the coastal foothills. The Great Park wetlands and San Joaquin marsh draw herons, egrets, and wintering ducks, the surrounding hills hold coyotes, bobcats, roadrunners, and California gnatcatchers in the sage scrub, and the neighborhoods run to Anna’s hummingbirds, scrub-jays, and fence lizards.
Everything below is pulled live from recent research-grade observations near Irvine. Browse by group, explore the map, and identify what you find with Huck.
Naturalists have logged 184,196 research-grade observations across the 30 most-recorded species near Irvine. The most frequently seen is the Western Fence Lizard, with 17,332 recorded sightings.
Birds account for the largest share of what gets recorded there (19 of the species listed here), followed by insects & arthropods (3).
Most-observed species near Irvine
Built from recent research-grade iNaturalist observations. Identifications are community-sourced and may occasionally be wrong, and the ranking reflects where people record and photograph wildlife, so a species seen often here is not necessarily rare elsewhere. Some plants and animals are only out in certain seasons. Treat this as a lively snapshot of what people are finding, not a formal checklist.
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