Hello, I’ve been using seek for a couple of months and I’ve had enjoyment in “collecting” organisms and adding them to my life list. I have observed 200 species, a hundred are plants. I like taking all the photos myself, but one specific animal I’ve had a really tough time with getting a good photo that the app can recognize is the white tail deer. It seems that no matter how close I get to one the app can never identify my photos. (And I know to be careful around them, ESPECIALLY the bucks.) Does anyone have tips on how to get the app to ID anything past deer? I’ve tried things like getting their white tails or their antlers in my photos, I’ve even tried with the many skulls I own. No luck. Can anyone give me any tips?
Seek might not recognize it to species but humans definitely can, if you post to iNaturalist it could get verified. Are there multiple deer species in your area? (if your inat profile is the same as your username here it looks like you’re in Illinois and Odocoileus virginianus is the only deer species there) You could also verify it yourself and not rely on an app, learn the diagnostic traits and trust yourself.
A general response to your title question is to simply get outdoors, the more time you spend in more different places, the more likely you are to spot something new. Train yourself to spot new and different things, and learn what can be found around you and how to identify it and then you will be more likely to spot those things once your brain has been familiarized.
Seek doesn’t let you put in your own ID, which is part of the reason I mostly stick to iNat. It has to be a really clear picture with all of the identifying features, and even then it’ll sometimes ID just to class. I do like collecting the badges! :)
Alright here’s the deal, I’m 15, all my friends love this Pokémon go game, but I feel like seek is the exact same thing only far more interesting and far more productive, plus it’s real animals. I view it as a game, and I want to win, but when it comes to this deer, the game is rigged against me.
New world deer is the furthest it gets me. Sorry if nobody helps, I realize as I look at these forums that most of you guys are actually scholarly people interested in the science and stuff, and I’m just a kid treating this app like a game. (It is a very fun one, it often takes real stealth strategy and patience to ID certain animals)
When I was 21 years old, I brought an anther to a table in a garden where a professor had set up a portable scanning electron microscope. He printed me this image. I was so happy I jumped up and down with it and did a little dance. He said to me, “You’re a real scientist.” I said, “oh?” and he elaborated, “You have childlike wonder.”
Idk how Seek uses metadata, but it cannot figure out an American Crow for me, yet somehow figured out Northwestern Crow after it was lumped. So I am unsure if it is capable of using GPS data or not.
I totally get the “collection” aspect of Inaturalist! I agree that you can just put it in Intauralist yourself and ID it as a “White-tailed Deer”. When I am feeling the urge to get out and ID things but can’t get away, I’ve started photographing weeds and insects living in the highly disturbed lots and patches of dirt around my work. In the process I’ve added about three dozen lifers. When spring comes, you’ll certainly add plenty more! Good luck!
It uses gps data to show you species nearby, but for some annoying reason it doesn’t seem to factor this into the actual ID, as it’s sometimes gives me IDs that make no sense based on my location for example I once had it identify a seal which only lives on the west coast as being a seal that only live on the east coast.
I feel like it has to use the data for some of the observations I have, they are really bad pictures of difficult to tell apart species, yet it figures them out with a scarily good accuracy sometimes. It would be really weird if it didn’t use GPS data in these scenarios. Yet it doesn’t want to give me a common bird, so I feel like it can use data sometimes but doesn’t, or this is some really advanced AI that can see things humans don’t.
You’re right, I’ve not really thought of myself as too much of a scientist, I don’t enjoy studying the world, as I’d rather just enjoy it, but even in my teenage years I still have that childlike wonder. I’m also the only person I know who has a hobby of collecting animal bones, so maybe there’s something there. (Halloween costume with a real deer skull was super cool) Thank you for your insight have a good night.
I have a theory that really common animals are what it really struggles with, just try scanning a human. It’s probably because most people don’t see a squirrel and think WHAT IS THAT THING?! And so the ai has very little information to go off of. Though it would be useful if more people did “collect” species, because seem taught me that the squirrels in my neighborhood are called eastern grey squirrels, which is good to know. I think seek can be scarily good sometimes, but also hilariously wrong
Earlier today it identified my deer skull as a wasp.
I get that. Only a few weeks before my encounter with the man and his portable electron microscope, I had confronted the realization I could never “do science” because I find the research process completely soul-crushing. Nothing kills joy like doing a bunch of replicates and then writting a paper about it. So it really meant a lot to me for this guy to tell me I was still a real scientist.
…but anyway, I am taking the conversation too off topic. Best of luck with your deer photos.
I think I tried out Seek for a hot minute and decided it wasn’t suited to what I wanted to do so I stuck with taking photos and posting them on the iNat website (not the app) which I’d been doing for a month or two (at the time).
I realize as I look at these forums that most of you guys are actually scholarly people interested in the science and stuff
I’m not a scientist and people active on the forum are just a minority of the people who use iNaturalist. Some people just want to know what that houseplant is. Others are curious about what they see on a walk. Some are actively seeking out new life (to them!). And some are experienced naturalists who help the rest of us out!
Funny you mentioned Pokemon. I am old - like quite old. And I saw a video of an old person playing Pokemon Go in an airport and I asked my kids if they thought I’d like it. (The are adults but all gamers.) One of them said, ‘Nah… you just go around finding new Pokemons.’ and I thought to myself…‘hun… isn’t that what I do with iNat!’. makes me laugh. I’m totally into ‘collecting new life’.
If Seek is really your jam then I won’t talk you out of it. But photographing and uploading to iNat is pretty fun too. I can’t help with getting Seek to recognize the deer to species, but if you want to increase your count you could try tricks I’ve tried:
