Do you make more observations or identifications? I’m newer to iNat so far I’ve got more identications.
In fact I’ve already got 800 identifications.
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Same. It’s easier to identify loads of familiar things (eg birds) but harder to find and document wild animals. I have 493 ids, but only 436 observations. A small difference, but only because I took a break from identifying things.
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Cool! Thanks for sharing.
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For most of my time on iNat, I had more observations than IDs. Since the City Nature Challenge in 2023 or around that time, I’ve made more IDs than observations - over 10k identifications by now (compared to about 8k observations).
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Observations.
I have more annotations than ids. I read the id folks use them to seek and sort. That’s got to be more helpful than iffy ids…
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IDs. I’ve got over 1000 (edit almost 2000) as opposed to 200 and odd observations
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I have more ID’s than observations. As of right now I have over 23800 ID’s and around 1400 observations.
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Particularly for insects, annotations absolutely are helpful, as there is not always an overlap in the ability to ID larva or galls and the ability to ID adults.
I’m glad iNat now displays annotations on profiles to acknowledge this contribution to the community.
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That’s awesome!
IDs by a wide margin.
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I used to have way more observations than IDs (like 5,000 more) but I really slowed down observing and am now about even (21,000 - 20,000 obs to IDs).
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I do “all this” on my iPhone. It’s a challenge, and I am not tech oriented. So… I just found observation fields by having someone add one to my observation. I’m not sure what all is included in that, but little by, I’ll find out. More ways to sort for the id-ers, mitigates my slow id skills.
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Nice job!
I do a fair amount of identifying and a fair amount of observing.
I’ve been doing a lot more identifying of older observations in my state recently since it’s been colder and I haven’t been out as much.
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Nice!
currently ~500 observations and ~2200 IDs
actually i’m surprised to see my annotations so low, ~700 - i’ve tried to be better about adding those recently! gotta up my annotation game!
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Lots more IDs for me; currently at 306k IDs and only 37k observations. I originally joined to help some fellow Lepidopterists plow through Nearctic Lep IDs, but since then I uploaded a portion of my own moth collection, and have used iNat to try to learn plants and get IDs on microorganisms that I see looking at pondwater with my students, so most of my observations are plants, pinned moths, and microbes.
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I very specifically aim to always have at least twice as many IDs as observations. I have more than that ratio right now though, as I haven’t been able to do much observing recently so I’ve spent more time IDing.
I suspect the answers you get on the forum might be a bit skewed though… the people active here are probably more likely to identify than the “average” iNat user (obviously generalizing here, there will certainly be exceptions).
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Observations, by far.
I have zero formal training and am extremely grateful to the Identifiers who have guided me to knowing what I see within my garden. I spend at least a few hours every day just being in that space, so I have grown very familiar with it.
That said, I find a lot of my recognition of species within my own garden is experiential, how a plant smells or how its leaves feel or shine, or how an insect moves or interacts with others (the ant attends these hoppers, this bee departs if this bee shows up). These things don’t appear in photos, which makes me extremely wary of identifying for others.
But every now and then I see something I feel good about, or @DianaStuder encourages me gently, and I do a smidge. (Bit by bit, we are all works in progress afterall.)
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Identifications (5103 vs my 1175 observations). From what I know, iNat has a bit of an issue with having way more active observers than active identifiers, so I try to help identify things when I can. Plus it tends to be something I do when I’m bored and on my phone as it’s at least more helpful to other people than scrolling through social media or something.
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