The only thing you need to do is change how you think. Why should you care what some random stranger thinks about what you are doing? Be confident. When they look confused, or nervous just smile, and maybe wave, and go back to what you were doing. How they choose to respond is up to them. Don’t let them spoil your outing.
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Have you thought of bringing along a friend to survey them ;? Someone a bit further down the track who greets them and says “hi, we’re doing a study on … and wonder if you’d mind answering a quick question about why you …” - it could be enlightening for everyone. :)
But without knowing the exact circumstances of what you are seeing, I’d be inclined to take those two cases as people actually being respectful and polite… If I come across someone very intently looking at something I can’t yet see, my first reaction is generally also to slow down, try to figure out what is happening, and whether I might ruin it for them by blundering past too closely/quickly/loudly.
Depending on why I was there and whether I had miles to go and promises to keep, I might keep watching to see if I could see for myself and perhaps chat to them about it when they were done - but the primary aim would be to not spoil their experience that I’d stumbled into the middle of.
I know I’d certainly trade a few of those for the kind of divers who will swim right over the top of you (and whatever you’ve just spent the last 15 minutes playing with to get to the point where it knows that you know that you know that it knows that we both understand respect for personal space and the signals that mean No, so it can go back to doing things that don’t involve your presence as a potential threat), many times also blasting it into the seafloor along with the clouds of dust their fins have been kicking up behind them…
Good Behaviour is a complex thing.
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I’ve done this before unintentionally multiple times 
Oh yes - the paid dogwalker - while we are photographing a delicate gladiolus - and the exuberant woof charges straight over it. It WAS a gladiolus. Next …
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Because that random stranger is apt to call the police on someone ‘acting strangely’. This isn’t limited to observing for iNat. As a field biologist who has had the police/ranger/sherrif/game warden (take your pick, I’ve met them all) come up and say someone reported suspicious activity in the area, doing something that others mis-perceive as suspicious might have consequences. National Parks in the U.S. have even started adding language to their permits such as ‘no permitted activity can take place in the presence of the public, or an attempt must be made to explain the activities if asked.’ This resulted in two behavioral responses from the science team: null mode and a dedicated PR person.
First, null mode. I made the term up, but in essence, if I see someone else while doing my permitted activities, I just sit down or stop, take a drink of water, or squat down so they can’t see me. That is, I just pretend like I’m randomly hiking down that dry wash or up that hill side.
Second, public relations. Another strategy if work is taking place along a busy trail. Going null mode isn’t feasible so someone is dedicated to be on the watch for people and both let us know of their presence and to explain what we’re doing if they ask.
I think my favorite permitted condition was ‘cannot leave tracks that may attract unsuspecting tourists off the trail.’ This would be fine if it weren’t in the desert where footprints are hard to prevent. My solution was to hike along thge trail to a jump-off point (usually in a dry wash), and then hop from rock to rock for 5-10 m until well away from the trail. At least I didn’t leave any side trails connected to the main trail. Once, while walking down a dry wash, I had to stop and tell a family that was following me that I was not on the trail and that they should go back if they wanted to stay on the trail.
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Before we get too off topic, this thread is for anything you do while iNatting in public environments to stay safe. For dealing with curious people who approach you while observing things, I recommend this thread by @slowdown
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Yes! SITUATIONAL AWARENESS. Absolutely!
(Came here to say that.)
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That is even more likely if you so happen also to be neurodivergent. I consider Autism Awareness/Acceptance Month a failure because, even though it has been around since the 80s, people are still so unaware and unaccepting that they have been known to mistake autism for being on drugs.
… is especially difficult for the neurodivergent.
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I’m sorry you live in a place where you have to worry about someone calling the cops on you just because you are engaged in a harmless activity.
Yes, I think dealing with police/security/authorities is it’s own special subsection of staying safe. Interestingly, the police are often called because, as many have noted above, the general public sees people observing or doing research, and thinks it is strange or dangerous enough to warrant a call to the authorities to investigate. Some of those people will also confront observers/researchers themselves, which can lead to dangerous situations. A previous thread with lots of stories and ideas about what to do that covers some of the same ground as this thread is:
https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/am-i-the-only-inatter-that-is-pulled-over-on-a-bike-almost-every-month/22107
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I totally understand that one as a safety concern. Even lightly trafficked desert tracks can be extremely persistent - so if it’s a place that expects visitors with little to no navigational skill, carrying little to no navigational equipment, with little to no familiarity with the region, naively following rough tracks - it’s probably right at the top of reasons they need to search for someone who went missing.
Arid deserts can quickly become a maze of trails that have each only been followed once. In the treeless flat plains, a lot of first time visitors would be surprised when we’d warn that one of the most dangerous things they could do was “go to the toilet”. If you didn’t pay very careful attention, walking until you could no longer see the vehicles or other people could be the start of a very bad day.
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We do not all live in safe environments, nothing weird about this question. Muggings and even even assault do occur here, and though I don’t live in fear, I would be foolish to put myself in danger.
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in other words, situational awareness.
If you hear or sense anything, turn towards the noise with the camera as well, and start the video. It’s been a great deterrent for me.
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I think this is a great topic and we can all learn from eachother!
Below are some safety tips I follow for my observing practices:
Occasionally, I see posts where people are making observations on private land but with permission from a landowner. They post it in the notes or comments of the observation which can be very helpful. This helps deter others from going to an area where they think they may be able to gather similar observations. Trespassing can lead to an unsafe situation.
During hunting season and while making observations in remote areas, we always wear high vis vests. I am also always carrying bear spray and an InReach device and scanning the surrounding area before, during, and after I put my head down to make observations.
One other issue when leading groups is that we are often walking along trails or pathways. I always try to remind people about cyclists and other pathways users. If you are a leader, it can be very helpful to have someone on the lookout and encourage communication among the group!
A safety meeting before you begin any adventure with a group can go a long way. Find out about people with allergies (i.e. bees/wasps) and health issues so you know what to do in an emergency. Identify anyone who is trained and certified in CPR/ First Aid. Identify any hazards you may encounter and have a plan!
Stay safe folks!
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Putting aside all thoughts of staying safe from other humans (I am fortunate that my circumstances seldom cause me to feel unsafe), the things I do to stay safe while iNatting in rural Vermont are:
When walking in the woods or wading through fields of tall grass, I dress to deter ticks (to prevent Lyme disease and other tick-borne ailments.) This means wearing long pants tucked into socks and a long-sleeved shirt, using repellant, and always showering and doing laundry immediately upon returning home.
Keeping abreast of hunting season, which is very complex, but mostly runs from early Sept. to mid Dec., with different seasons for different game (turkey, bear, deer, moose) and different weapons (archery, shotgun and muzzleloader - whatever that is) During hunting seasons I always wear an orange safety vest and hat when iNatting in the woods.
Being mindful of bears in Spring through Fall. There are plenty of black bears around, which are not usually a threat to humans, except if there are young and the mother feels threatened. So when walking in the woods I make noise to alert bears to my presence. If I forget to bring a “bear bell” I will sometimes sing… the silly childish tune “The Bear Went Over The Mountain” often comes so mind.
Since I am terrible at singing, this has the added benefit of potentially scaring away other humans, as well.
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It’s a firearm that loads like muskets did in the old days – the projectile is loaded via the end of the barrel and tamped down.
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It’s not strange or weird at all. Just look at what happened to Stephen Thorpe! 
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To be fair though, what happened to Stephen was strange and weird (where it happened). That’s precisely what makes it so shocking.
And I’m still not aware of enough details being released yet to know what if anything anyone might reasonably have done differently to prevent it.
In the analysis of any incident, there are always multiple identifiable ‘failure points’ in the lead up to it, generally any of which, if the people involved had done something different, the incident would not have occurred.
Thinking you’re impervious to accidents might be a common one. But thinking the opposite alone is not enough to remove you from risk. Everything else is situation and participant dependent and a game of probabilities - and most people are (no shame, it’s just true) terrible at correctly estimating probabilities.
We underestimate risks we take every day and which are so ‘normal’ that they rarely make headline news. (Nobody so far has suggested things like ‘wear a seatbelt on your drive, or a helmet on your bike’ on your way to where you’re going exploring. Nobody has suggested ‘wear a kevlar vest if you inat near a school in the US’, and most of those incidents don’t even get reported anymore, there’s just not enough news hours to fit the Everyday Ones into).
And we vastly overinflate the sort of risks that have TV news shows dreaming of ratings gold for the shock and horror they are able to conjure around them.
The company that makes ‘shark shields’ has apparently just gone bust. And there’s a tiny subset of people horrified by the prospect of no longer having that placebo to keep them safe… It’s true, I live and dive in a place that has Really Big sharks - not the really, really big ones, but definitely the biggest of the mouth full of white pointy teeth kind. But if you’re a recreational diver here, and not killing things on your dives, and you want to invest $700 in improving your life-expectancy - then one, easy, obviously more effective thing you could do with that money is buy a good helmet, and wear it on your drives to the dive sites. People are seriously injured and die on those roads nearly every day. And a helmet doesn’t drag behind you, destroying the habitat you came to visit.
So how dangerous are the sharks around here in practice? If you’re a surfer it can suck to be you. If you’re a spearfisher it definitely sucks to be you. If you fall off one of the boats that’s been baiting sharks in for tourists to see, I wouldn’t want to be you. But there has, to this day, never been a scuba diver taken who was not themselves taking other sea creatures, and there’s public records you can use to confirm that for yourself. I’m sure they see us on a good proportion of dives, but of the rare occasions I’ve come up on one close enough to see it, I’ve still never been able to turn the camera on fast enough before it looks at me, thinks something like “f*** that’s scary”, and is gone like a shot. And that’s when I’m trying to look as un-threatening as I’m able to in that kit.
A big part of learning to be safe in any situation is learning not to panic. Not about what’s possible, not about what’s real. Getting out of trouble reliably needs a clear head, good judgement about what is the most pressing danger, and prior planning for what your ‘out’ should be in the event of trouble looming. You can’t plan to not get hit by a meteor, but you can learn to not be your own worst enemy in stressful situations.
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This is a topic I’ve thought about often.
Going outside, usually alone, to less-populated areas, and often carrying expensive cameras or phones - it’s an inherently risky action. Even more so if you are uploading observations as you go - both because you are distracted looking at your phone more, and because you are leaving a real-time trail of GPS coordinates of your location in a public internet space.
It’s always interesting when the safety topic comes up in communities I’m a part of. There is usually a subsection of people who are confused about the need to discuss the topic at all, and 99.9% of the time those people are cisgendered men. To be clear, I’m not casting any shade for not understanding - but I do want to point out that that this cautious mindset does not grow from nowhere. It is built bit by bit from incidents we experience throughout our lives, and if you are fortunate enough to belong to a less-targeted demographic group, be grateful for that!
These are the regular precautions I take:
Telling someone: I always tell my partner where I am planning to go, and when I plan to be back. If he’s not home I leave a note with this info or send it to a trusted friend in a text. If I decide to deviate from this plan, I first drive somewhere with enough cell reception to get a text through updating the plan.
Not going to an unfamiliar place alone: if I’m exploring somewhere for the first time, I try to take someone with me if at all possible.
Self-defense items: I always carry pepper spray within easy reach. Sometimes I also bring a walking stick, and I generally have a small knife as well.
Keeping ears on alert: I’ve trained myself to listen to my surroundings at all times, even when when focusing on something else - side benefit, I end up spotting more interesting creatures as well. (NEVER wear headphones or earbuds outdoors. Ever.)
Having the right supplies: In my car, I always keep a spare tire (and know how to change a flat), extra food and water, a change of clothes and a blanket or jacket.
Keeping situational awareness: I am always very conscious of any other humans in the area, where they are, and what they are doing. This does mean I can’t ever feel fully relaxed when I’m not completely alone, but it also allows me to avoid a lot of potentially dangerous situations before they happen.
I’ve run across mama bears with cubs, found a steaming-fresh mountain lion kill, nearly stepped on a coiled rattlesnake, gotten attacked by a swarm of yellowjackets, had to pepper-spray aggressive dogs, and been charged by a rutting buck, but none of those things scared me like some of the encounters I’ve had with other humans out there.
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Good for you! But as someone else pointed out - not every place has the same level of security. I live in an area where you hear stories frequently (like every few months, and some are extremely scary actually) from collegues and I was one of those stories to my collegues once as well.
I got robbed while iNatting two years ago …actually that day even almost twice as I lost my phone and had to walk around in an unsafe area to get out of there. My biggest mistake? Ignoring my gut feeling because I wanted to get a certain observation. People, don’t do that! Trust your gut.
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