I have plants that I’m photographing as they bud out, develop leaves and flower. I’ve adding links between them but I’m wondering if there is a better way to do this.
There is a field “Same specimen over time” that helps link these observations together. Somebody else will need to tell you how to use it.
This is what I do:
For the first observation, I use the observation field “Similar observation set” and copy into the space just the observation number.
For subsequent observations, copy the observation number of the original observation into the space in the observation field “Similar observation set”.
Then when you go to any of your obs of that plant and click on Similar Observation Set, and select Observations with this field and value, all your observations with that number will pop up.
Check it out with this one of mine: https://inaturalist.ala.org.au/observations/196905957
If it’s the same individual (the A. julibrissin tree in the front yard, or a theridiid that stays in the same web for weeks and months), I use “Same individual over time”. If it’s a group and I can’t distinguish individuals (the sparrows at the Westgate Earth Fare), I use “Similar observation set”. They work the same way.
See if this post helps.
https://www.inaturalist.org/posts/29431-link-multiple-observations-of-same-individual-over-time
The observation field Similar observation set contains a description and this description refers to the Tutorial. This Tutorial-topic contains more informative(?) links…
For a guide on how to use this field, see: https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/using-the-field-similar-observation-set-for-linking-observations-of-lepidoptera-when-raising-on/1018
Oh, I missed that field. Thanks!
You can use any of the options you were given or a lot of others (I personally use “Specimen code” and assign as the “code” the number of the first observation) but I recommend using a “code” instead of listing all of the similar observations in the obs. field each time.
That way, when you want to see the entire “set” you can click on the name of the annotation and “Observations with the same field and value”
I am using it to track the observations of a specific, very friendly hybrid duck in a nature reserve, much easier to link the group than to fetch every observation to paste them as a comment in each ID 
Thanks everyone! Not only is this useful for my observations of plants, it’s really interesting to see how people are using these fields to document life cycles of different organisms.