This is my first year in iNat, and I think I’m doing good so far with my observations and IDs. But in 2025 my goals are: 1500 observations, 750 species and 40.000 IDs. How about you? What do you want to achieve untill the end of 2025? I’m curious to see your plans.
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This is a nice topic and although it’s a bit early perhaps I think writing this down will hopefully help me stick to these goals. :D
I don’t have any real “number goal”, though 50000 IDs doesn’t seem unreasonable to achieve within that time.
My main goals for observing:
- I want to up the quality of my own observations. I have gotten an actual camera recently, so the photos themselves should be better quality (after I’ve practiced a bit), but I also want to make more informed photographs showing the features required for ID.
- Additionally, I want to spend more time on my initial ID. I’m currently not spending as much time as I want to on IDing my own stuff as I hate to have a backlog, but since my workflow will change with an actual camera (stacking being more important and I have to get the files to <20mb), I think I’ll have to embrace it
- I want to do my lichen observations properly next year, including microscopy and chemical tests where necessary.
My main goals for identifying:
- I want to learn more about marine life, especially focusing on invertebrates of the benthos and interstitium. (I’d never have thought I’d be a worm guy, but polychaetes are amazing!) Other marine taxa I’d love to learn more about would be Copepoda and Foramnifera.
- For the taxa I ID currently: I want to start working on an illustrated guide (including keys) to all known lady beetles (either the entire family or just the Coccinellini tribe). This will be a passion project I will probably spend a decent amount of time (multiple decades) on, and nothing I could ever achieve until the end of 2025, though.
Other iNat-related goals:
- complete 12 taxa for my red list projects (adding the conservation statuses and creating the taxon-specific projects)
- reduce my iNat-Forum activity (this is a nice place, but I’m on here way too much and most of my posts are probably not really that helpful or interesting to anyone)
We’ll see how much of this I will actually achieve. :D
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(Since we are in the same country…)
Regarding aquatic (albeit not marine) organisms, this freshwater monitoring project might be of interest to you: https://www.flow-projekt.de/index.php/de/aktiv-werden-de
I participated in a group last year that someone at work had organized and I found it to be a well-thought-out, structured citizen science initiative with a fair amount of support for participants – they provide extensive identification literature, training, resources, and material for collecting and analyzing samples, etc. For me it was a neat opportunity to see invertebrates I wouldn’t normally encounter (I suppose you might have more exposure as part of your university courses).
Last year I found that winter was a good time to find zooplankton and macroinvertebrates in the local ponds, so no need to wait until 2025, particularly if you have access to a microscope for the really small stuff.
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One of my plans is to upload more bird observations to iNat. I just recently joined. So far I have 77 observations, 56 species, 622 identifications.
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I will be moving, likely around the first of the year.
I have so many emotions around this.
I am happy about the move, for we will be moving significantly closer to where our older son and his bride-to-be will be. It is a completely different part of the city, much newer, and excitingly there are people from all over MX who live there, which means the food options are amazing.
On a naturalist note, I am sad to be leaving my little garden, where all my Observations have been (and are still) being made.
The new house has a lovely garden space, smaller, square rather than long and deep, and with mature trees: banana, limon, naranja agria, and others. It is an extremely orderly garden, which is to say that my beloved native plants, if they have sprung up, have not been permitted to grow. (Yet.)
I may need time to find my feet under me again. Or I may feel renewed. TBD.
edit to add: I just got a new phone with a new camera, so one of my definite goals is to master using that. (I had the same phone for seven years previously, which my children found hilarious.)
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It’s also my first year using iNaturalist. I don’t really have any goals as far as the number of observations or species, but I do have some regarding species I’d like to get photos of this next year.
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I would like to hit 2000 obs, and maybe squeak out 1000 species? I would also like to find the rare Orono sedge, which is endemic to a few towns in the Penobscot River Valley, where I live.
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This does indeed look very interesting, thank you for sharing! :D
On first glance there don’t appear to be any existing groups near me, but I’ll look into it a bit!
Yes! Winter is great for that. And I’ve got a “field trip” planned to sample a new woodland pond that I found. :D
I have a few microscopy observations from last year around this time (or a bit earlier). The stuff you can see is really fascinating (though sadly a bit hard to photograph. It’s really fun though!
I find the one drawback of freshwater vs marine samples is the abundance of organisms. With freshwater samples you need to let them sit for a few days or use special equipment (like plankton nets) to increase the population density. In May I had an excursion to Sylt and did a project with intertidal Meiofauna. Our sediment samples were about 0.5cm³ iirc, and in one I counted >100 nematodes alone.
I made it a point to ramp up my identifying this year and added 26k IDs so far compared to 16k last year. Hoping to do more next year. I do a lot of arachnid refining and I’ve been using the anomaly detector.
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I reached 1,000 observations a few days ago. I figure that reaching 1,000 species is within reach for 2025.
WOW!
I really must make time to work on clearing up (not all) Dominican/Haitian lepidoptera. It annoys me, for instance, that none of the Acrolophus species listed for the Dominican Republic by the Moth Photographers Group have any observations, and that Dominican observations of Acrolophus tend to be identified as North American species. Epimecis – a large, conspicuous moth – has a similar problem: people assume that they are all the Tulip-tree Beauty. I have been toying with the idea of building a website of Hispaniolan lepidoptera that is actually useful for identification, not just checklists. Preferably in Spanish, so that Dominicans can use it.
That may not be directly iNaturalist related, but iNaturalist is where the most useful images are likely to be.
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Honestly I have very few vague aims, along very vague themes, and I’m happy to drop them as well. A lot of things are not working out in my life, and the living world is my refuge. It is almost inevitable that nice things will happen while I’m out there, and I’ll see nice things and get a few nice photos, and I’m just happy and appreciative when they come along.
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Exactly!
My goal is to be outdoors as much as I am able and my photos continue to be whatever shows itself to me.
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I feel like my observations still skew pretty bird-heavy, even though I made a concerted effort to photograph more plants and arthropods this year, so that’s an ongoing goal for me. Some other rough goals for the upcoming year:
Observing:
- More beach trips! Tidepools, marinas, estuaries, high tide lines…all so full of life and I feel like I’m missing out on seeing a lot of it (especially since I got a microscope last year)
- More reptile and amphibians —a little tricky with a history of ophidiophobia, but I’ve come a long way
- More iNat outings with friends and groups! I am not a super social person, but it’s nice to explore with others sometimes, especially when they have a knack for noticing things that I don’t. And sometimes it’s just nice to share a cool nature experience, or have someone who isn’t afraid of snakes do all the log flipping lol
- Travel to some new places (already have 2-3 trips in the planning process)
- Take advantage of my camera’s video function and get more footage of wildlife as well as still photos (on this note: also use my dang tripod more)
Identifying:
- Keep up with my general rule of >2:1 ratio for IDs and observations
- Learn birds in other regions so I can ID outside of the US and Canada —I’ve already started doing this with waterfowl
- Become more familiar with North American rodents (starting with US/Canada/Northern MX squirrels)
- Have copy/paste responses for FAQs like “what’s the difference between feral pigeon and Rock Pigeon?” in multiple languages
General:
- Get at least ONE friend to make an iNat account that they use regularly and frequently
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I also want to stay more outdoors and, maybe, to visit farther locations of the world 
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I usually set a goal of a 1000 observations per year. I try to keep my IDs at about half or better of the total number of my observations. IDs are harder because I am not an expert, and I am more careful about identifying other people’s observations. I don’t set goals for number of species but do note when something is new to me. I also, at season’s end, decide on what I think my best find was for that season.
1000 obs? Geez that’s a lot! I don’t travel that much so I’ll have a slower progress in observing, I usually go in 2 vacations for about 1 week or two. Instead I’ll ID a lot during this winter and rainy cold days 
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Well it’s per year, so under 100 observations per month, though most of my observations are from March through October; I go on walks almost daily in the spring and summer–I really start hitting trails in March, so it’s actually fairly easy to reach the goal. I live near state and local parks, and my summers are usually spent in northern PA near some great state parks as well. I teach, so summer affords me more time to spend outside, but in spring, I go after work and on weekends. It’s fun; I learn a lot; I reduce stress/anxiety. I find winter hard because I can’t walk as much.
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I’m torn, because I would like to do that, too, but if I’m going to achieve my other goal of spending more time in the Dominican Republic, I’m going to have to position myself better financially. These countries with income/investment requirements for legal residency…
No number in mind, but I’d like to start microscopy, it looks so cool ! And I’ll be going to a new place, so I’d like to explore it as much as my free time allow to make it a bit like home.
For ID, I’d like to be able to decrease those numbers of Need ID Bindweeds in Europe.
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I am not sure of any travel plans. Locally, I need the Virginia Rail. I couldn’t find one during the November king tides, there will be higher tides in December. But if I miss it then, it will be my target for 2025.
Lots of birds that show up around May, Olive-sided Flycatcher, Cassin’s Vireo, Black Swift maybe.
Laysan Albatross if I can do a pelagic, but there’s no guarantee I’ll see one. Any of the gadfly petrels would also be great.
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