Hi! My name is Kris, long time outdoorsy and naturalist, just found out about this community recently!! Don’t be afraid to say hi and let me know what are your favorite things to observe?
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Hi Kris! :)
I’ve been using iNat for around 4 years now, and I’ve learnt so much. My favourites to observe are wildflowers and insects in my local parks. Its amazing how much is out there.
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Hi, welcome! iNaturalist is a great place to connect with other naturalists. I think you will love it! I have an interest towards arthropods, so I use iNaturalist mainly for them.
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Hello and welcome Kris!
I joined iNat 3 years ago (don’t know if that counts as “Long time” 
). My favourite things to observe have been arachnids and fungi since I was a kid. A new favourite, brought to me by iNat, is bugs (Heteroptera). I do make observations about a lot of "obvious things”, like spruce and birch in Finnish forests, though I avoid overdoing it. I just feel like these are often left too neglected.
I think the single best thing I’ve gotten from iNat is knowledge from others; especially experts. A while ago I asked what I should take photos of and note about grasses, as I didn’t have a clue what was important. They’re all around and I can see there are differences, but many species are very similar, the differences being in small details. Sometimes as small as DNA…
I’ll always remember discussing aphids with a german biologist specialising in them. She said that sometimes she feels like most of her job is “putting aphids in a blender” to get samples for sequencing, and wonders why on earth she decided to specialise in aphids of all things. But then she finds something new and remembers why. From her I learned that with aphids, getting to genus-level with basic visual observation should be considered a victory. 
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Hi Kris,
Welcome to iNat. I started as a birder around 2010 but expanded to butterflies and then beetles and then flies and now I absorb just as much as I can. I have turned into a generalist for sure. I have only been actively contributing to iNat for a couple of years. They have helped me catch up on getting ids for both my current observations and many of my old observations. This is strictly a hobby for me so I am pretty laid backed in my contributions. I am also active cleaning up litter in my area and calling attention to the problem worldwide:https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/bitter-about-litter
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Hello and welcome to the forum! I’ve been using iNaturalist for around a year now and been a naturalist for 6 years or so. My favorite things to observe are snakes and lizards!
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Hi, Kris! I’m in West Central Michigan, photographing whatever I find in my backyard and very nearby. I primarily use an iPhone and enjoy a clip-on macro lens. That opens a new world! I have seen so many new things just by LOOKING!
I’ve been an iNaturalist since 2018, the forum a few years later.
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Welcome! Glad you found iNat!
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It appears that different participants understand “long-time naturalist” differently:
We seem to have two categories so far:
Those for whom “long-time naturalist” means that they were a naturalist long before coming to iNaturalist;
Those for whom “long-time naturalist” means that they have been on iNaturalist a long time.
As I fall into the first category, I am continually amazed at some of the power users who have thousands of observations and IDs dating back seemingly to the dawn of iNaturalist. In some ways, I feel like I’m late to the party as I discover just how long iNat has been around.
But other times, I discover what I have taken for granted being a long-time naturalist from childhood. For instance, having a wide range of field guides on my shelf that I can refer to when making generalist IDs – wide-ranging both taxonomically and geographically. I haven’t always been as understanding as I should with those who don’t have that background and seem to me to be overcautious.
Mainly taxa that are new or unfamiliar to me. When visiting a new area, I often look at what has already been observed there and make a list of the top ten most-observed – and avoid those. I’m not always strict about it, but it is a guideline to help me be more diverse.
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Greetings. I’ve used inatralist for about 4-5 years. My first on I don’t use because I updated my phone and couldn’t access it. I’ve been a naturalist for about 10 years (I started when I was 8) :D
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Well, yeah. I just counted that as “life”.
Whereas other kids were taught “tree” or “butterfly”, I was taugh spruce and Small Tortoiseshell. I spent such a large portion of my childhood in the forests and meadows and on the archipelago that it keeps amazing me how little most people seem to know about nature. I just never thought of it as special or a named concept. 
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Hello Kris! Welcome to INat! I just joined the forum not even a month ago, so probably not a long time for that, but since I was little, I’ve loved nature; I remember catching box turtles and toads and lizards around our little yard by the time I was 2 or 3 years old. By the time I was four, I started begging my mom for her phone so that I could take pictures. Not all of it could exactly be called nature; I got a lot of still life, mostly bananas, which at the time I found hilarious. Still haven’t gotten a phone yet, but I now have my own camera, which is thousands of times better, and have gotten to know nature around my home in Arkansas pretty well. I’m mostly interested in entomology and ornithology, but I like all animals in general. INat will definitely improve your knowledge and recognition of plants and animals; it has certainly helped me!
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Welcome Kris,
iNat has added greatly to my understanding of the natural world. It is wonderful to have a ton of experts willing to help you learn and to be able to help some others that might not have your level of expertise on a subject (species). My only advice would be to always be kind and humble, which no doubt are traits you already possess from being so aware of nature. Have Fun!
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