Glad I’m not the only one who usually gets corrected with condescension rather than better info :P You’re not alone
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Probably no more than anyone else, to be honest. There are lot of curators from eastern North America There’s very little that shows up just in the Maritimes. I’m only aware of one New Brunswick endemic plant, for instance.
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I was using eBird and didn’t like that the site wouldn’t let me hide my location and sent out “rare bird alerts” every time someone saw a rare bird. I didn’t like not getting feedback if I posted a photo of a bird and I wasn’t sure of the ID.
I moved to iNat because it didn’t have those problems.
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For me, I found iNat and thought it would be an interesting way to document observations and would cover more than birds (before that I used eBird extensively). I was out photographing at a local rookery and saw a dragonfly and I photographed it with my iPhone. Well, for some reason after photographing the egrets I looked at iNat on my phone and found that the late greglasley identified it as a teneral (I had to look that term up!) Blue Dasher. I knew Greg as a photographer and had admired his work for many years.
About a year later after many messages with Greg, I met him at a birding hot spot and spent the day observing wildlife and talking about iNat. After that I was hooked on using iNat and have been contributing on a regular basis. His enthusiasm for nature and iNat was contagious and had great effects on my life and the lives of many others.
I will sorely miss Greg,
Scott
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For me, many of the same reasons as above—interest in nature, friendly and helpful community, learning all the time. I’ll add these:
I’ve always been interested in nature but haven’t had much experience with identification or knowing much about particular species, especially ones that aren’t particularly famous or haven’t been on BBC Earth. I have a lot more experience in photography. After one the stock photography sites I worked for reduced their payments to contributors by a whopping amount, I quit that site and found myself spending more time on iNaturalist, putting my photos here.
I had been able to ID many of my nature photos for stock photography (I had to label them for sale), but when I uploaded here I found some pleasant surprises. For one, I was wrong about a few and was amazed at some of the skill others had here at identifying. I really appreciated people taking the time to ID my photos and learned tons very quickly. (Besides here, I spent a lot of time searching for info to make IDs on other websites and in printed guides.) So, I learned and enjoyed improving my own understanding.
Also, people were not just able to ID, but specify identifications down to the subspecies level, often taking the time to explain to me how they could do this. I was blown away in amazement and very inspired.
Put these two points together and they add up to a positive community. Like others have said, there’s nothing but help and positivity here. Both people IDing and conversing on observations, but also help by admin and in the forums. Folks have really gone out of their way. So refreshing and inspiring! I’ve noticed several people IDing tens or hundreds of my observations. I felt very grateful for this. Some of these people had tens or hundreds of thousands of IDs, so I both trusted their judgment and felt connected to knowledgeable people. But also, first-time names popping up and people who didn’t have loads of identifications, I really appreciated their contribution, too! That encouraged me to try identifying others, something I’ve only just this week started to try. I feel the sense of community, especially a focused, positive, and learning-based one.
I also want to mention the use of the “favorite” button. I’ve only gotten a few favorites so far. But those REALLY brightened my day. I’m not really into the whole chase for likes on social media in general, but it felt special to be recognized for either having contributed a good photograph, an interesting observation, someone’s favorite species, or whatever.
So, I’d like to encourage others to go ahead and hit that “favorite” button! It will make someone’s day and encourage them to upload many more observations.
One last thing I’d like to say is about the structure of the site. I really like being able to fill in my tree of life. Seeing your progress through stats can be very encouraging (I’m a teacher, so I think about how to help students find motivation. Game companies and social media networks recognize this power well, and I’m glad to see a science-based platform take it into account.) I like collecting, like going to a national park and trying to check off all the birds or mammals in the park guide book as you see them. With iNat, you can play this game forever. And you can see it in chart and photo forms. And you can share it—which will be a new step for me this year as I want to start a blog. I just noticed the new feature where you can share photos to Facebook, which has huge potential! I’m guessing most of my few readers will not be on iNat (I’m the only person I know here non-virtually), so sharing this site easily and attractively elsewhere will really boost iNat in the future I think.
One of my overall life goals is to help more people notice and value the natural world that we are all part of and to know and feel how interconnected we are more deeply. Thank you, iNaturalist.
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Welcome to the world of identifying! Don’t be afraid to ask questions if you have any.
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As I’ve said before, I view iNat as the real-life version of Pokemon. Instead of catching with Pokeballs, I catch with my camera. I call finding species “filling out the pokedex.” Since it is impossible to find all the species in all the places, the game really does go on forever.
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I joined, effectively, to communicate “once and for all”, in photos and writing, instead of continuing trying to show and explain the local environment, its natural wild progress and human-induced biodiversity loss and environmental destruction, to all the people in my neighbourhood, and those with nominal ownership and or management of public spaces that are intended to be nature reserves;
and secondly, now my focus, to provide a searchable public record as proof of the current possibilities and historic achievements of simple manual weed control when combined with thorough habitat assessment and species identification.
Regardless of whether anyone ever sees, understands or uses the evidence, the learning I have enjoyed from making and being able to access such a record is a vastly more enjoyable experience than trying to interest or persuade others.
And it is, as so well expressed by many in the comments above, an experience hugely enhanced by the opportunity to relate to, and feel validated by, all the enthusiastic and supportive people, from academics to naturalists, on both the website and Forum.
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So glad you stuck around Amy. You make my day when ever I see you have been making ID’s for Eaton Canyon. It is because of you and other’s like you that I spend way to much time here everyday.
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Weclome to the fourm!
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The thing that got me hooked on iNat was that there was room for my photos. I didn’t have to crop them down to tiny sizes (bugguide) I didn’t have to pay for more storage (flickr) I didn’t have adds overwhelming my content (photobucket).
The things that keep me here are the people. I love the ID discussions, learning (and sharing) why something can be IDed to a certain species. I love that there are people here who can help me ID most of the things I find (though I need more mushrooms, moss people, etc.!) I really love bioblitzes, especially the City Nature Challenge, and especially when I get to meet fellow iNat-ers in person.
I’m also very inspired by creating data on the relative abundance of plants. It has bothered me that it’s easier to find documentation of some showy rare species than of your basic common weeds. I get great pleasure in filling in the blank areas of the map and helping to create data that is more accurate and more representative of what’s actually out there. Following new invasive species is also fascinating to me, watching the biota change before my eyes, so interesting.
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How lovely to be an “inatter!”
I find this very interesting and intriguing. Some years ago we did a project to document traditional seed varieties of cultivated crops. We even collected seeds. The cultivation protocols were also documented. The collected seeds and cultivation protocols were sent to an organization working to save such seeds.
One thing missing in all this was live identification of the plants. In the seeds, sometimes, one could see the difference when they were laid side by side. Often we depended on the local farmer for this information.
However in the past 15 odd years a lot of hybrid varieties with local sounding names are being promoted by mega corporations and their smaller buddies has been making their way in and now it is becoming harder to say what is what.
So I feel a missed opportunity in not documenting plant characteristics of varieties. Maybe with inat people can start doing that independently of “paid and organized” research / documentation.
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And indeed there are iNat users with a “Gotta catch 'em all” approach!
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I came for help with identification. And only used the app. I live, and have lived, on corners of the globe that don’t have good, or affordable “field guides” for anything except birds. So finding a community that could identify for me was a huge help.
But, it was a nameless “them” identifying.
Until one of the identifiers volunteered to help me understand iNat better. Then I decided to explore the main site and discovered that it is easy to use, and that my knowledge of North American butterfly identification was a welcome addition as I could be the one to confirm an identification and help someone else’s observation become research status.
I stay because this is a place where biologists, and nature enthusiasts can come together as equals in their love for nature. Where we can share and encourage one another as we document the many species surrounding each of us.
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Feel sorry for you identifying via app!
Welcome to the fourm!
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Thank you. Being able to ask questions and have people answer them is a big plus here. I’m quite interested in learning, not just identifying, so if someone gives a more specific ID, adds an annotation (male, female, etc.), or suggests a different ID, I’m always curious how they came up with it. There is a field to add why you think so when making an ID, but on my observations it’s rarely used. Anyway, I sometimes ask and get responses and it, too, is part of why I’m still here on iNaturalist.
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