Posted an obs of a migrant bird in New Zealand. Heard song only, no images. The bird, Shining cuckoo, has a very distinctive song. I understand the obs can’t make research grade without photos or audio, but I received a missing media message (see pic attached) which concerns me that the observation …

If you don’t have media, then the observation will be Casual grade. It will not be exported to GBIF, but researchers getting data directly from iNat can choose to use Casual observations.

Cheers. Yes, I understand it will remain as Casual grade, was just concerned the obs would not be included in data. For example, on the taxon page for the species, the observation doesn’t show up on the Seasonality graph, which is a shame because it’s quite important to know when these migrant birds…

Do you know you can upload recordings of birds, etc.?

Yes, but this is a difficult bird to record audio from. It’s usually far off in the bush or at the top of a tall tree.

Alright! But even bad audio is sometimes better than nothing, plus it stays in needs id pool, so it’d be easier to find for someone who’s looking for species.

The audio would be so bad all you’d hear is wind :-) It’s a small bird and needs to be quite close to be able to record something. I do try where possible to get audio for obs: https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/audio-observations-from-around-the-world/contributors/jacqui-nz

[image] jacqui-nz: The audio would be so bad all you’d hear is wind :-) It’s a small bird and needs to be quite close to be able to record something. You’d be surprised at what audio observations people can ID despite massive amounts of wind or other noise.

Missing media message on bird observation upload

General

Topic		Replies	Views
Observation without media General	8	836	February 25, 2021
Are observations without photos welcome? General	8	770	October 17, 2021
Posts without images General	30	1760	May 19, 2022
Why is song not an available evidence of presence for birds? General question	21	604	January 11, 2026
Uploading observations with no photos General question	33	689	February 3, 2025

Missing media message on bird observation upload

Related topics