While teaching an introduction to entomology summer class, I sat in on one of my TA’s discussion sessions. He was recommending iNaturalist to the students to help them identify insects for their collection project. I tried it out a couple months later.
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In December 2017 I wanted to travel to NZ. To find out about insects I might encounter there, I made a flickr gallery - and someone there suggested INatNZ (which was then called naturewatchNZ). I realised it’s a worldwide site, tried it out and got hooked (like so many other)
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I used to be a docent at the local Open Space Authority and was helping check people in to a public day at a normally closed reserve. Mostly, I just sat at the entrance with an OSA staff person to greet and do sign-ins.
@merav was there, doing a bioblitz perhaps. On her way out she stopped at the table and chatted with us about the day. She showed us her phone with some of the things they found and recorded on iNat. I was intrigued that people were interested in random little slimes and tiny insects and galls - you know, not just the obvious big finds. Anyway, soon I after I downloaded the iOS app, but did not try it out for ages. I think the iOS app’s limitations and lack of on-boarding contributed to me being rather inactive the first 2 years. I did not get much going until late 2019, then much more during the pandemic.
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I now remember how I got interested in other species. During lockdown last year I attended some online classes about biodiversity. During one about freshwater turtles and tortoises a site about them was explained so I joined it. Freshwater turtles and Tortoises of India. I submitted some photos I had of freshwater turtles. I later found out that it was part of a larger site India Biodiversity Portal. I later remembered about a similar site but didn’t got it’s name. I then found the app when going through play store.
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I don’t really remember. But the story is something like I had my first smartphone and I wanted to see how smart it was, actually just going through a lot of apps and the settings, even rooting the device. Probably been curious about nature I searched for apps related and should have found iNat.
But just after buying an iPhone (the previous have a horrible camera) and getting into biology is that I’m really active here
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I overheard something about it in a bar.
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A wild, colourful turtle joined a family photoshoot in the park. I was trying to figure out what kind it was (I knew it wasn’t a snapping turtle), and I kept getting images for my province from a website called “iNaturalist” in my search results. Seems legit, I thought to myself. I have those kinds of questions a lot, and figured going straight to the crowdsourcing couldn’t hurt.
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There is a youtube channel called “It’s Okay To Be Smart”. They did a video on this app and me being the nature loving person I already was decided to download the app and start using it.
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Welcome to the forums
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I abandoned a site I had been using for sharing pictures and talking about them for years and I kind of got lost. Nature photography is a major hobby for me, but I’m not really hooked if I cannot share it somehow. I tried different formats (Flickr, insta…) but they kind of bored me. Then I remembered a German nature-spotting website I had tried before but forgot why I had stopped. I actually love the concept. Tried it again, but I always run into some technical problems after a while which are super annoying. So me not living in Germany anyways anymore figured there must be international options of this kind of site and googled. That’s how I ended up here not too long ago and I am quite happy how it turned out for me. The page does motivate me keeping up with my hobby in setting goals
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I found the site originally while doing research for a blog about snakes I used to co-run. However, I started properly using it after the It’s Okay to Be Smart video like another mentioned above. I had just gotten my first DSLR, so it seemed like a good use for the majority of my photos that aren’t up to snuff photography-wise. That was just over a year ago, and I was instantly hooked!
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No idea. XD
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I initially joined for citizen science but wasn’t really active until I found out how many Euphorbia observations I could identify. At that point, I was hooked.
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A fairly new local pollinator group, Mystic Charles Pollinator Pathways, held a meeting introducing it.
I’ve glanced at iNaturalist off and on, but it always seemed overwhelming. Getting a tutorial helped me over the hump.
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Way back when South Africa was still on iSpot, I was introduced to that by a blogger in England. Now I am addicted to iNat.
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@coreyjlange introduced me to it in like 2015? Took a couple of years of setting the hook, but now I’m hooked.
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And thank you VERY much for your many Euphorbia IDs!
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From this news story: https://gizmodo.com/man-takes-first-ever-photo-of-living-colombian-weasel-a-1835102519
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The crazy thing is, I have no idea! A few thousand observations later…
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