Is there such a thing as taking too many photos of a species (in a certain area or in general)

[wagawaga83]

In March I visited the Klamath mountains to photograph the deer oak (Quercus Sadleriana) and now there’s a sizeable bump in the unverified observation graph for the species. I got excited and took photos of twenty four deer oaks. I figure as long as I’m not taking photos of the same individual tree I can’t really over represent the population maybe everyone else is just under representing I mean the deer oak was litteraly everywhere on my hike. But it still feels weird that I made the graph look weird. Should I be restraining myself in order to not throw off the statistics for a rare species? I mean several times I’ve gone to a place where an oak tree was reported took a lot of photos and made it appear on the map as if that area is the statewide hotspot. Is this bad am I doing wrong?

[joegiulian]

Show no restraint. Photograph and upload everything you feel is a valuable occurrence record. Overrepresenting is not a concern; underrepresenting is the plague of biological sampling. The former can be managed easily, the latter is far more harmful.

[wagawaga83]

Hooray !

[lynnharper]

What a great reply! I agree with all of it.

[AdamWargon]

The Passenger Pigeon was once the most common bird in North America, with a population in the billions. In Eastern North America, they used to darken the skies. In the North Atlantic, there were millions of Great Auks. Today: zero. Would anyone complain that we had too many observations of them? We can’t predict how valuable our data will be to future researchers.

Edit: While fact-checking myself, I discovered that the post above was basically me regurgitating two previous posts, without remembering them. #TIL that doing that has a name: cryptomnesia. Here are the posts I was remembering:

First, my own post from 2025 Feb:

@AdamWargon

the passenger pigeon was once the most common birb in North America, numbering up to 5 billion. They used to darken the skies. The last one died in 1914.

I’m pretty sure no iNatters would be complaining about “too many passenger pigeon observations” uploaded in the 1800s.

That should tell you everything you need to know about uploading “common” species.

Which was me “cryptomnesia-ing?” Donna’s post from 2022:

@whateverwatcher

Thank you for posting this topic ItsMeLucy! I’ve had the same question, so you helped me. I often think about Martha, the last passenger pigeon. Passenger pigeons were once so common that they were said to ‘darken the sky’ for hours or days as they migrated in large flocks. We simply can’t know what our observations could mean in the future. (Martha is special to me because she lived out her days at my local Cincinnati Zoo. )

And here is a related post that I found, which paints a vivid picture:

@safron

I think about what the world would be like if these species never went extinct very often, and what spectacles of nature we could’ve been so lucky to observe. Imagine a flock of millions of Passenger Pigeons flying over the eastern U.S. like roaring thunderclouds that took hours, if not days to pass by. Imagine going on a vacation to Madagascar and catching a glimpse of an elephant bird running into the brush. Imagine going to Hawaii and being surrounded by hundreds of different species of birds that are found no where else on the planet, and are specialized for the environment they evolved in- without humans. The story of the O’os is one that really hits the feels button. Imagine flying to Mauritius and seeing firsthand one species that is the essence of extinction: The dodo

[wagawaga83]

I can’t let any oak tree go extinct I will save all of them

[joegiulian]

Same story with the Rocky Mountain locust. Once a scourge on American crops, and the bane of many’s existence… until humans managed to finally destroy the species, leaving us very few remaining specimens, since entomologists largely ignored making collections of the species given its commonness (at the time).

[Quercitron]

Quercus sadleriana is a beautiful species. Let’s see even more of that posted.

[nilshelstrom]

This response and the responses to this response make me happy.

[wagawaga83]

One of my favourite oaks!!

[roadside_rambler]

What others have said, but also, iNat data is good for things like range maps, seasonality, and providing lots of quality photos. It’s not good for showing population numbers, and no scientist worth their salt would attempt to use it for that. So you don’t have to worry about skewing the numbers.

A famous tree in a public place, or a once-in-a-lifetime bird blown off course to an area the species is not normally found, might be observed many times by different people. Someone is also a lot more likely to post all ten rare orchids they find in a patch as separate observations, than all ten thousand dandelions in their neighborhood. There is far too much human bias on what to share for it to reflect population numbers, and that’s okay.

Now, identifiers can get bored sorting through too too many of the same thing (like please don’t post 10,000 dandelion observations!) but what you describe doing is not nearly so extreme as that.

[ilenisaatio]

This subject rises quite often. In general, it seems to be ok to make many observations of a species in an area within reason.

Personally I tend to make observations of common species precisely because many won’t. If it’s a tree, for example, that lives for years, I make re-observations maybe once a year, if not less. But yeah, feel free.

[swara_aves]

I’ve thought of this same question far too many times… There are 4/5 resident Spotted Owlets at one of my favorite birding spots, and I can’t help but photograph them every single time! Which is why I do wonder whether I am over-documenting the species from the same area. I suppose I might be photographing different individuals (?) but I refrain from taking shots of them daily since I try to visit once a week, and spotting the owlets (pun not intended) is like ticking off the items on a grocery list, at this point. I don’t think I’ll ever stop taking pictures of them, because a thought at the back of my mind says that maybe these owlets will disappear from here after a couple of years and I will be having the necessary evidence of their behaviors…

@ilenisaatio

I tend to make observations of common species precisely because many won’t.

I also completely agree with this! The owlets have become a daily sight (for birdwatchers; others have not even noticed them) and are often ignored and taken for granted, which is another reason for me to photograph them.

[tim122]

For plants that tend to grow in groups via seed and/or root I only submit one plant (normally at least 3 images -flower/seed head, leaves, overall plant) but also add one photo of the context (group photo plus the rest of the habitat). We might anticipate iNat asking for this in the future the way eBird has done.

[tim122]

This is a good opportunity to submit the photos to eBird since they are interested in multiples, age and sex via Add Details on the website. They are also interested in “aging” photos, especially if you have dates. NestWatch.org is a great way to do this.