Thanks for asking this question. I am relatively new to iNat, and wondered if I was “junking up” the system with my observations that were repetitive. It certainly makes sense to see the seasonal variations and patterns over time to have a big picture of what and where and when.
I also like seeing the observations from others for these species that are common around me— and to see where they exist. Just yesterday I learned that the Eastern Gray Squirrel is also common in England. Who knew?
Thanks to Cecil John Rhodes it is also in Cape Town.
Quite often I have found myself being guilty of not posting the common stuff in favor of something more interesting. I think it is important to keep the common observations in their current level of commonality. For instance if I look at a species list for a given space that I frequent and I notice the common stuff is lagging behind other species on the list, then I know I have fallen into the trap of new species greed so to speak! I try to correct this mindset and keep the appropriate balance based on my observing experience.
I also have the opposite issue with a new project within my MN chapter in which we are tasked by Texas Park and Wildlife, using their loaned cameras to document all mammal species observed while we search for species of greatest conservation need. Comparing the last 16 weeks of mammal observations in my Williamson, Co. to the two previous years for the same time period show a dramatic difference that adding the common observations can have. All from 12 individual observers.
Thanks@bookworm86
Mike
If you look at my observations, many (most?) are of common species in my area. I do this for a few reasons, most of which have been mentioned above. Another reason I haven’t seen brought up yet is purely for myself: I like going to the “My Observations” page and seeing the relative abundances of species I’ve seen, and a sort of ecosystem “snapshot” created by the image tiles of those species.
White ibises, for example, are common neighborhood birds in my area but my observations of them account for just under a third of the total in my parish.
No problem!
I was wondering because we have a lot of deer in our area (white-tailed deer mostly), so I just didn’t know if posting pictures of the same group of deer (in our back yard) would clog up the site (the deer is just the top example I can think of).
That’s interesting 
! Also welcome!
It is the it is the most observed* mammal in the UK.
In most of England it is the the Grey Squirrel is the only squirrel, and probably the only squirrel most people have seen in England. The native Red Squirrel is now confined to Northern England, North Wales, Scotland and a few islands (two of which are near me). I’ve only seen a red squirrel a couple of times and not for years despite having visited both of the local islands where they can be found (but probably not at the best time of year).
* By number of observers. On number of observations grey squirrel is second due to one person having a very high number of hedgehog observations.
Most of common things are getting unnoticed, in all taxas, I have most of observations on website for some spider species (e.g. Steatoda castanea), though they’re common and live in or near houses, but I didn’t know about them before getting in iNat, and I’m sure lots of people still miss them before they’re everywhere and can be treated not as something worth observing.
Just because something is common, it doesn’t make it easy to identify. Sometimes what was thought to be a common easily recognised species turns out to be two, so if you have a photo it might be possible to assign your sighting to one of the segregates. This happened recently with one of the commonest woodlice (isopods) in Britain, Philoscia muscorum, so easy to recognise you rarely took a specimen or a photo. Some Belgians (if I remember correctly) thought we ought t o have P. affinis too, came over for a weekend and found it. There are differences in pattern so records supported by a photo can sometimes be re-identified.
I note that many common (and some uncommon) species are uploaded to iNaturalist by school students in their science projects. I applaud the education and interest of the next generations in ecology.
Same with Panorpa, they look so similar you’d never thought there’re many (recognizable) species around.
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