What to look for in my area by month

[dlevitis]

If I want to see what has been observed in my county in the month of August, there is a simple search for that: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?month=8&place_id=2764

But most of the things at the top of that list are also viewable every other month. If I want to decide where to go locally to see things I’m not going to see other times of year, I need to search for what is observed disproportionately in a particular month, compared to all the other months. I suspect iNat doesn’t have, and won’t have, the capacity to let me search for that.

So I’m wondering if anyone has built a tool that will help me (and everyone else making similar decisions) decide what they should try to see in a particular area in a particular month. It would be amazing to be able to do a quick search and know, “August is the best time to see these species, and then November is the only time I’m likely to see these other species.”

Please point me to a tool for this if it exists. Thank you!

[pisum]

i’m not aware of anything that does this out of the box, but you could do something as simple as getting August and comparing it to all months to get a ratio of August to all months. if you want to see things across the whole year, you could get data for each month and merge them.

there’s additional discussion here: https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/seasonality-of-species-for-location/66082

[dlevitis]

Thanks. That previous discussion does ask a related question, but not really what I’m looking for.

@pisum

if you want to see things across the whole year, you could get data for each month and merge them.

I agree this is possible. But with the 10K species that have been observed in my county, what I’m looking for is not a way to see the seasonality of a particular species (which iNat makes easy) but to search for the species specialties of a particular month. It could be, for example, every species for which more than 33% of observations are in that month, excluding those observed on only one day of that month and those observed in only one year.

[pisum]

@dlevitis

search for the species specialties of a particular month. It could be, for example, every species for which more than 33% of observations are in that month,

there’s not a single way to define “specialties” that would work for every taxon in every place, etc. so it’s up to you to get that raw data and decide what is worth paying attention to.

here’s one way to get started:

• https://jumear.github.io/stirfry/iNatAPIv1_observations_species_counts?verifiable=true&place_id=2764
• https://jumear.github.io/stirfry/iNatAPIv1_observations_species_counts?verifiable=true&place_id=2764&month=8
• etc…

another way:

• https://jumear.github.io/stirfry/iNat_observations_taxonomy?verifiable=true&place_id=2764
• https://jumear.github.io/stirfry/iNat_observations_taxonomy?verifiable=true&place_id=2764&month=8
• etc…

[GothHobbit]

iNaturalist Bingo!

It generates results based on everything that has been observed in the month of the query.

Now, I’m pretty sure that the link will initially show you things that are local for me, since I copied it from my bookmarks, but if you look at the bottom of the page, you’ll see a dropdown arrow. Clicking that will bring up a box that says ‘Change Location’. You can give it a state, a county, a metro area, wildlife areas, certain parks, and even some habitat zones. I tend to have the best results with county, since I try to get out to some not-heavily iNatted places.

The nice thing is that the results aren’t all the usual same-old same-old. It’s got a good mix of plant, vertebrate, and invertebrate. Hope it’s a useful tool for you.