Although some forum discussions have touched on this, I haven’t seen a focused discussion on the topic of when (or whether) to rely on observer notes when identifying observations. Generally, in my own identifying, I do my best to follow consistent protocols and adhere pretty strictly to the rule th…

I don’t have a policy on whether to include observer notes in IDs. I do read the notes. I know that some observers (usually beginners) will copy or paraphrase published descriptions into their notes, presumably to give more information to the reader, but those don’t count as observational notes. …

I kind of take them as supporting evidence, and will include or discount them depending on things like the particular thing they’re talking about and how subjective or clear-cut it is, the observer’s experience level, whether what they note seems to support or contradict what the rest of the observa…

[image] ekmes: Notes are not verifiable, but neither are things like location, or date, or if we ask someone clarification about the observation in some way. I was going to say this also, that location and date can provide information that helps us decide an ID and these are data that are not…

[image] jnstuart: [image] ekmes: Notes are not verifiable, but neither are things like location, or date, or if we ask someone clarification about the observation in some way. I was going to say this also That’s exactly where I was going with it, too. Should I “just take their word for…

Being an eBird reviewer, I experience the full gamut of notes on observations of birds. They range from “seen well” to 5,000 characters describing the bird, complete with 10 full frame photos. Many times the observer describes the bird, then attaches a picture of the bird that does not match the de…

Ostrich! And the obs is a blurry green picture of Landscape. Mark as Reviewed, next. I cannot ID what I cannot ‘see’. Sorry. I don’t comment. Have not been pulled into an acrimonious discussion.

Thanks for that link! That does address the same question, but I evidently didn’t search for the right words to make it pop up. I think it’s worth revisiting the topic (at the risk of redundancy), but now I’ll have two forum discussions I can direct people to if I need to support an “I can’t ID what…

I think the notes are really helpful, especially for traits that don’t show up in the picture, traits I wouldn’t expect to be there – calls, behavior, tiny features. If the person describes the lemma of a grass, I at least know that he knows that the lemmas matter so presumably he did actually look…

I have been going through a lot of audio observations. Most of them are bird songs/calls. If I can’t hear the species ID features, I can’t offer a species-level ID. It’s nice to see notes that people add. There are a number of them that say that the person saw the bird. But, if the song/call isn’…

ID based on observer notes

General

bouteloua June 21, 2025, 10:53pm 5

Here’s a relevant previous discussions to peruse: https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/what-is-evidence/470

Topic		Replies	Views
Identifiers: Read the notes! General	133	3134	December 6, 2025
What happens next? General	26	1197	December 11, 2024
Shouting into the Abyss - Why do some "easy" observations sometimes go unidentified? General	80	2225	July 23, 2024
In defense of "lazy" observers (like me) General	252	10418	October 18, 2023
Get ID to old observations General	31	1113	June 18, 2026

ID based on observer notes

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