Thanksgiving Message

[yayemaster]

Today in the US is Thanksgiving.
Thank you to the iNaturalist staff that make this a safe and special place for people of all places and backgrounds. Thank you for running it so smoothly and patching up any errors immediately.
I also want to thank the curators and identifiers for devoting their time to iNaturalist and turning the photos into research.
I am grateful for INaturalist and everyone on it.
What are your thoughts? This does not have to apply just to the US.
Thanks

[lynnharper]

What a lovely thing to say! Thank you for posting it. I, too, am very thankful for iNaturalist. Right now, in the early winter of the northeastern United States, I am thankful that I can open up iNat to the most current posting around the world - https://www.inaturalist.org/observations - and see cool organisms I never knew existed. Right now, that first page has observations of a Fairy Pitta, a Yellow-bellied Sea Snake, a beautiful marine fish (as yet unidentified to genus or species), Red Ginger, and a great head-on shot of a White-lipped Globe Snail. (These all need confirmation, by the way.)

If I go start Thanksgiving dinner, when I come back in an hour or so there will be all new observations on the front page. So cool! So fascinating!

[ItsMeLucy]

Thank you for those more knowledgeable than I (basically everyone) who has generously shared information, answered questions that may have seemed obvious, and offered words of encouragement. I am humbled.

Thank you for the generalists, whose observations pages offer the illusion of voyages to places near and far. They offer such a stunning sense of place by simply showing what is around them.

Thank you for the young and to the students. Many post photos of Tridax daisies, one of the few species I feel qualified to identify. (Perhaps this is a specific assignment, if so thank you too for the instructors making this assignment.) Almost all have contagious enthusiasm. Every one is bright as the sun. They make me hopeful.

We do not celebrate Thanksgiving but every evening the pups and I go out into the garden at sunset and sit. There are black birds that fly in large groups overhead from the direction of the shore toward the city (they fly the opposite direction at sunrise). The bats begin to soar and dive into the garden, large ones and small. This quiet, reflective time became very important to me especially during quarantine, which is when I began iNaturalist. Looking at the sunset each day, I always had the sensation that I was viewing a living piece of art, promising something new every day. I just had to maintain calm and patience.

Thank you to the birds and wee animals in my garden, to the Saharan dust, to the wind, for dropping innumerable things in my garden that grew into exciting and new plants that attracted exciting and new insects and such. I give so much thanks for all of it.

[jon_sullivan]

That’s a nice idea. Yes, I am thankful and indebted to the amazing iNaturalist.org staff, to all the identifiers that have identified and corrected IDs on my observations, and everyone that has left a comment on an observation that’s brightened my day. It’s a wonderful community to be a part of.

[mbwildlife]

I know I’m a few days late, but thank you to everyone who helps keep nature alive and teaches it to the world, like many of you on iNaturalist. Thank you to all of the researchers and hobbyists and naturalists who devote their lives to the wild world!

[egordon88]

I would like to thank everyone on this website who makes it such an amazing place to waste time. Especially the 664 users who have identified my uploads and the wonderful staff (who are going to release a new and improved iPhone app any day).

I also love @tiwane 's identifier profiles and hope the November one is coming this week