Beyond Anonymity: Revealing Your Inaturalist Identity Offline

Wandering around, camera in hand, with one’s eyes fixed on the ground and taking photos of weeds and other random objects?

At least, this is more-or-less how we recognized each other the one time so far (to my knowledge) that I encountered another iNatter in person. (It may have helped that the site in question was not the sort of place that one would actively seek out for a nature outing unless one happened to know that it was home to a significant population of a rare bee species – so it was a reasonable conclusion that we were both bee people, if not necessarily iNatters.)

I suppose one could also buy an iNat hat or shirt if one wanted to make sure of being recognized. I don’t live in an area with a particularly high density of iNatters, but I have wondered sometimes whether I have crossed paths with others unknowingly. A couple of times I know (based on observations in the posted on iNat) that I have been out on the same day at the same location as someone else but we seem to have missed each other by an hour or two.

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