How can I maximise my number of observations?

Using the iNaturalist app on a mobile device helps by making individual uploads quicker.

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Clearly you need to go for a walk across that blank space. For science.

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Possibly but probably more an artifact of rather few main roads and ease of access to photo yuccas on the roadside.

Added— I believe a high percentage of those yucca records came from one observer.

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I’m with you at about 1,300 observations. What I found is that better documentation gets more IDs. So my goal is to always document the organism as thoroughly as I can to make IDs easier, and to ID it myself to the species level. That way, I learn more by going the through the process, and IDers usually just have to click on Agree. I aim for 90% of my IDs being Research Grade. Last I checked, I was at 92%. Woohoo!

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Y.elata is common throughout. Much of it is Federal land and accessible, the Continental Divide Trail goes through. Comparing density roadside with the range land could be interesting… but probably not something I’ll take on.

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I’m pretty sure this was a joke, folks. Note the winky face!

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I failed to see the winky face (I have winky face blindness).

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Even cropped photos may be worth reviewing, some good examples of hidden organisms in:

There are certainly plants that like roadsides, because of disturbance and runoff, but that’s a discussion for another time :slightly_smiling_face:

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Welp, there’s a project I definitely need to join

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Perhaps, and I known many places roadside in SW NM where there is a greater diversity of flora than I will see elsewhere. Runoff, seed carried on vehicles, less grazing, undisturbed other than one or two mows per year and, I’m sure, other factors.

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All true. In cattle country, where grazing can reduce diversity, the most biodiverse areas are often between the paved road and the barbed-wire fence.

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Yes, I was joking… but not so successfully :smiling_face:
Forums are a challenge and I should know better. But I just loved @egordon88 's graphic - it was begging for some kind of response!

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I agree that you have to have at least one purpose. In my case I have several purposes, which results in recording everything that I think is identifiable over about 60km of coast. The fact that this has achieved a high observation count is totally irrelevant, but over time, incredibly useful detail is coming out of this logging over the same area for more than five years now. This is only going to increase with time, I am very sure of that.

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The last thread about roadsides is equally relevant in the area I live too. Natives are rare in agricultural land, but there are very real remnants of native species growing/living in the roadside areas. If only these roadside strips were 10 times their present width, or even more. When this theory is applied to rivers, it is formally called riparian strips…

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Yes, although I have only been a member of iNat for a couple of years, I have slowly been uploading my wildflower photos I have taken over the last 15, so that may be why certain users seems to have so many observations…

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Unless you were purposefully observe everything around you for 30 years in the same pace iNat requires it (so not one photo a week) or worked on sampling hundreds of thousands of specimens, you won’t get in top with archives, @ck2az had 100k observations when he joined iNat, but he got 120k more, meaning 6 years on iNat produced more than his all life before. Hard work does it and iNat presents the reason for it.

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Do whatever makes you happy and you enjoy. Go out find life and share it online. That makes me happy. Find what makes you happy.

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It is easier to get photos of almost everything you see if you use a compact or sub-compact Camera which you carry everywhere you go. That has done wonders for my being able to record many of the creatures and plants I come across.

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Prior to signing up on inaturalist, for a Florida Master Naturalist project (3 modules) 3 of us (paddlers) created a blogsite on A Paddler’s Guide to the Flowering Plants of Womack Creek, Tate’s Hell State Forest (FL). After receiving our certificates of completion I maintained that site regularly to note mainly budding, blooming and fruiting times of the plants and also expanded it to include all life on that 3.75 mile navigable creek. Inaturalist opened a much larger platform to me since posting twice was redundant. I continue to post budding, blooming and fruiting times of now all the paddling venues we frequent in our area. This means, I am reminded to return 4 times a year to each of these venues (not just one creek). The feedback from confirmations and the responses to my questions which experts generously (and patiently) have expanded my observable universe and improved my observation skills. Robert Aitken in A Zen Wave: Basho’s Haiku and Zen wrote: “When I look carefully nazuna is blooming beneath the hedge.” And, as it has also come to pass for me, “True seeing is appreciating; true appreciation is motivating.” It’s not the count that matters; it’s the possibilities…

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