Question about Observations

I followed your instructions and created a new observation but the system keeps telling me that something is missing and nobody will be able to see it.

Here is the screenshot of my observation without media because I couldn’t take a photo.

and here is the warning window that popped up when I clicked submit

Screen Shot 2021-04-01 at 9.58.44 PM

What does “missing identifications” mean?

1 Like

It is not the identifications that are missing, it is the media. It is because you have no photo or sound file attached. This is perfectly fine to do as an observation (I have 10,000 plus of these)

If you are doing this via the website, there is actually a selection under the ‘Add’ dropdown on the top left to add a record with no photos.

You can still save and submit this and it will go through as a normal observation with no photo.

If you are actually trying to add a photo, that is what is not there.

EDIT - rereading your post it is clear you want to add a no photo record (sorry, just got home from work and have not turned my brain back on yet), so the recommendation about the add dropdown is what you want.

6 Likes

This part of the pop-up did not apply for this particular observation, since you had already identified it as Swainson’s Hawk. But FYI, when someone leaves the species or taxon (“what did you see”) completely blank, the intent is to encourage them to include some level of identification, even if it’s just a broad “plants” or “insects” or “fungi,” to keep the observation out of the “unknown” bucket and improve the chances of getting a more specific identification from the community.

5 Likes

Was there a photo included in the observation? If not, @cmcheatle has covered it well.

Thank you all for the replies.

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