I was preparing a trip to NZ in 2017 and made a flickr gallery of insects I might see or want to see there. One of the members (don’t remember who, but I’m forever grateful) suggested to use iNat - naturewatchNZ it was called back then. I started to try it out, realised it is global and am hooked ever since. :-)
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North England garden blogger who wrote about small wildlife, and introduced me to iSpot. Later South Africa migrated those older obs to iNat. The first CNC hooked me into an ID addiction. What IS that?
I have long passed my goal for iNatters - two and a half times as many IDs as obs.
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Was a user of BowerBird here in Australia. When BowerBird closed and iNaturalist Australia launched, I migrated too (although I missed the block transfer of observations!).
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I was introduced to Inat through a video by the channel Be Smart: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1-LjzKx-u9g
I guess that I found the way he compared Inatting to Pokemon Go really captivating :)
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I was looking for a place to upload a photo of a “weird” insect and I wanted to know the name of it. I found iNaturalist on the web, I made an account on the website, I published that photo and I stayed away until October 2022 when I installed the app and started uploading more observations.
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An article in Birding magazine.
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I was doing some work with National Geographic in 2015 and it was suggested to me to participate in National Geographic’s Great Nature Project.
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A friend told me I should use it so I did. I was impressed by it, but was very sad to see so few records for where I live
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Came up on Google when I searched something. I realized it would perfect to ID the tarantula photo I had been holding onto.
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Late last May, I was in our public library reading an article about wildlife photography in a copy of the Bruce Trail magazine.
The writer referred to the iNat site and a week later, I was hooked and… here! (And there, of course.)
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I’d heard of iNaturalist a few times on Backyard Farmer, but never took any action. Later, about two growing seasons into my newfound obsession with plants and plant identification, I heard about it again on the Crime Pays But Botany Doesn’t YouTube channel.
At the time, I was using a combination of Google Lens, The Flora of Nebraska (though botanical terminology was still pretty overwhelming for me back then so I didn’t use it much just yet), and several regional flora sites (GoBotany, Minnesota Wildflowers, Illinois Wildflowers, etc.). Finally checking out iNaturalist really fast-tracked the whole learning experience for me.
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I started spending way more time outdoors because of covid and I realized I didn’t know what anything was. My cousin told my family about the app and my dad downloaded it. After seeing how well the vision worked I decided to try it for myself. Now I use it way more than either of them and no one can stand going on a walk with me because I can’t go more than 10 feet without stopping…
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That’s exactly what happens to me. No one stands me to stop every meter to take a photo.
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I Just purchased a new iPhone and wanted to try the camera so I took a random picture of an insect and was stunned by the beauty and the colour of it and immediately researched it on the internet. Inat pop up has a good place to identified it through a picture since I didn’t know what it was then, a candy-stripped leafhopper made me joined the community.
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I wish I could remember how I first heard about iNaturalist, but I don’t!
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It’s my friend who created the Tangled & Trapped collection project. I found some dead, birds tangled in mist net which they hang around fishponds and cultivation here. Yes, archaic and terrible. They let me know about iNat and to post it there, and then I was hooked!
They are working to raise awareness on this awful practise of killing birds around cultivation here in Thailand. Hopefully it can be tackled soon.
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A friend was doing the Alabama Marble Bowl through school and roped me in.
https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/the-marble-bowl?tab=observers
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I started bird watching during Covid and I was using eBird. As I saw other things I wanted to include those on a checklist too, so I googled “ebird for other animals”
And I’ve been hooked ever since
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I just “broke up” with the site I had been sharing my photos and love for nature for the past 7 years when I came back from my trip to Galapagos in January 2020. I was searching for another outlet and possibility to share and keep myself busy with what I had observed (tried flickr, instagram… but it bored me fast). I remembered that there was a german page where you can share your observations - I did like the concept but not how it was performed - and deliberately searched for something similiar in english language… that is how I discovered iNat and got hooked (and just in time before Covid hit… it was a lot of fun exploring the backyard during curfew times with the help of iNat)
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Several years ago, maybe 2018, As a volunteer for Santa Clara Valley Open Space, I was assigned to “greeter” duty for a BioBlitz at a normally closed property. After, @Merav showed us some of the things she observed and explained iNat and took us around the nearby area to see what there was to observe.
I downloaded the app, but did not do much of anything for a year or so. I was so clueless (iOS app user), I did not even know that others would be IDing my submissions. I was a bit put off when IDers kept changing my (incorrect) ID of a yellow lady beetle. So, I did not post much again until I broke my shoulder and was confined to my small patio for any outdoor time. I became fascinated with watching the birds and insects, especially the life cycle of the lady beetle larva that were abundant then. I had some nice discussions, which drew me to the community aspect of iNat. I’ve been a regular ever since.
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