Up until now I’ve mainly been using iNat to track whatever I see when out on walks with the family. However on Saturday 1st August I’m planning my first solo iNat trip where I’ll be heading to a nature reserve for 4-6 hours specifically to document whatever I can find. Some Basic Info: Weather is…

The main things that I’d add to the list are: Sunscreen DEET / insect repellent Hat Mini notebook & pen for jotting down observations. If you can, find a provincial or state guide to local flora & fauna in PDF form, and load that onto the storage card in your phone. Nice to have a reference handy…

Ah. I almost forgot completely, I also carry a swiss army knife at pretty much all times. Invaluable in many situations involving insects or arachnids.

omg, I’m recalling any number of male palp illustrations that could seriously have been described as “swiss army knife”, so totally an appropriate tool to associate with them!

If there is any possibility that you might get lost, a successful rescue is much more likely if you stay where you are rather than keep moving, which not only makes you more lost but also much harder for the rescue team to track you. Thia ia one of many instances where our instincts can be quite mi…

Thanks for all the awesome advice everyone. There is much gold here! [image] tiwane: It’s probably too late for this particular trip, but you can get old manual focus macro lenses quite cheaply from reputable places like keh.com . Great tip. I wasn’t able to spring a Macro this time, but I di…

[image] lm77: Good question. I plan to do it analogue with a notebook and pen. Jot down a few details about the subject and then the OS map grid ref. That should be enough to locate a rough GPS location when I input the images to iNat. Not the most streamlined approach but it will do for this tr…

[image] lm77: I wasn’t able to spring a Macro this time, but I did pick up a cheap set of extension tubes. I used to hold a magnifying glass over the lens of my camera, having first made sure it wouldn’t touch glass to glass by putting a thin piece of paper over the lens… it acts as a diopter…

As someone who regularly goes on accessible solo hikes/trails, the things I bring always is my phone and its accompanying clip-on macro lens, bottle of water, some energy drink (just in case), sunscreen, towel, phone charger and cable, torch, and raincoat. As much as its an iNat trip I personally w…

If you want help to ID plants, take lots of pictures. It’s hard to know what you need to photograph for an ID because it’s different for different taxa. This is my general photo approach for unknown plants: Whole plant including its habitat Closeups of flower, fruit, seeds, buds. The flower from t…

You’re not going solo at all. We’re with you in spirit. :smile:

First Solo iNat Trip - What should I take? - #35 by system - Nature Talk

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Life Hacks for naturalists

Nature Talk

169

17844

June 26, 2025

Share your favourite iNatting tools!

General

26

1608

September 23, 2022

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General

40

3885

July 15, 2019

iNatting / nature hikes while injured / handicapped

Nature Talk

68

4076

August 12, 2025

Budget Friendly Camera for Recording Observations

Nature Talk

question , gear , photography

16

308

July 20, 2026

First Solo iNat Trip - What should I take?

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