iNaturalist’s main goal is to connect people to nature—the data is only a bonus. Observations without media are usually posted to just keep track of what someone wants to regardless if they were able to take a photo or not, and that’s ok. I personally post casual observations and ones without media to look back on in the future
Not every observation has to be particularly useful. Even blurry, unidentifiable photos could be useful to someone (even if they often aren’t).
Who knows, maybe an observation without media might lead someone else to taking a closer look and to discovering something new :)
yeah, that did it. I was on my phone accessing the website (don’t use the app) and editing urls and ticking boxes, etc. I might have been able to sort it out once I was on my computer but that link did it and I’ll bookmark it! Thanks.
I have a few observations without photos but they all have sound files, so there is another type of evidence provided. I come across a lot of obs without any media though when identifying casual observations. They typically are mass uploads from a few users e.g. importing their entire ebird list or similar.
I use iNaturalist to keep track of how many species have been recorded on my land trust’s nature preserves. If I see an animal on one of the nature preserves and don’t get a photo of it but it’s one that’s never been documented there before, I’ll upload it as a casual observation without a photo. That way, there is a record of it and it’s on the species list for that nature preserve. I’ll add comments so that future users of the species list will understand why the record is there without any documentation.
I have, a couple of times I think. But it’s for my personal records. For example, I see the first Ruby-throated Hummingbird of spring in my yard out the kitchen window on such and such a date, but never get a picture of it. I still want to be able to look back in coming years and see what dates the first ones appeared each year. So a casual observation with no pic works for me for that purpose.
My camera doesn’t have a GPS on it, so if I want to record where I saw something, I’ll add a no-photo observation on the phone app. I will eventually go back and get the photo off the camera, but sometimes it takes a while.
I’ve added an observation of a black bear that I made before I knew of iNat, and when I didn’t have my camera. I added it when I observed footprints of what’s probably the same bear in nearly the same place.
I’m thinking of getting some sort of sound recorder so that next year, when the chuck-will’s-widow returns, I can record the sound.
You can respond to mulitple posts in one post. Select the text you want to respond to then click on “Quote”. It will appear in your draft. You can write a response below it.
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This keeps in the thread much more organized and easy to read.
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