In that regard, I’m going to have to mention my friend @graysquirrel (met through iNat) who in addition to having IDed well over half a million observations (mostly plants) for others, and having taken close to 50K observations (about half plants), has decided that she needs to personally observe all 2209 species of plants ever documented in Marin County, California. As mild-mannered Krissa Klein few recognize her. But when night falls the mighty @graysquirrel has IDed observations for 84K other naturalists, and few dare challenge her.
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I’m not a fan of seek because it’s just less scientific. Doesn’t record your finding, doesn’t have humans review the photos, and doesn’t contribute to the computer vision model. Uploading to iNat helps in all these departments.
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I came to iNaturalist through Seek, and I still use Seek regularly, but I do not upload observations directly from Seek. The primary reason is that you can only upload an observation immediately after taking a photo in Seek, and I don’t want to use up the data on my phone uploading images while I’m not on wifi 
. In other words, if I open the app now, I can go through and see everything that I have observed, but I can no longer upload those observations.
In my experience, I have found Seek to be quite accurate, especially with plants. I love having it with me on walks. While I often also carry a guide book for my area, I do live in a city and there are many non-native plants that aren’t always covered in guide books. It’s also usually just a lot quicker than rummaging through a book.
Overall, I upload to iNat to contribute scientific data, and to just learn more about what’s going on around me. I found that once I started uploading to iNat, I started spending more time on iNat doing all sorts of things - IDing other’s observations and looking for particular genera/species around me.
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In many places, tree crickets provide a nightly soundtrack–I hear them outside my house as I type. With iNat, you can enter your location (i.e. state or country) and listen to the recordings that people have made posted.
There are several advanced sorts of things that make for interesting exploration.
Here’s the link:
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?place_id=18&quality_grade=research&sounds&taxon_id=63036&term_id=1
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I use the two tools differently.
I use Seek in the field and suggest casual users use it to identify things in the field. It can work with no internet; I used it that way in Yellowstone NP this summer and was impressed. It usually gets the ID right or close. I don’t upload from Seek and mostly don’t play the challenges. I also use it to identify photos I don’t upload to iNat. I like that I can use Seek and nothing is shared about my location. I’m a user when using Seek.
I contribute to iNat from my desktop using my photos I have cropped. I understand the citizen science aspects and want to contribute because I’m outside a lot. But I’m busy, so those uploads don’t happen often. But when I use iNat, I feel like a contributor.
I don’t use either of these tools for the social aspects although my use of them involves community.
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My favorite was when one iteration of the AI used to ID photos of humans as “Agaricus bisporus, White button mushroom.”
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543 left to go! (I got distracted by galls for a while :P)
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That’s an incredible amount of data, I wish this country could record a fraction of that many observations, especially plants, boy howdy.
We don’t even have 17k observations in the entire metro area of Cuenca with almost 400k residents, lots of tourists (historically!) and a large national park.
I’m sure the countless mining firms in the area enjoy the privacy.
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Maybe having more exposure would help? I had printed some advertisements about iNat and left them at my university when I was learning there, I thought about putting them on news boards of our builduing, so other people could see and join. But you too can become an example of how useful iNat can be, the more you’re out observing, more people will join from your example.
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I got the Seek app (on iOS) to use with kids and introduce them to observing on nature walks.
But, the few times I tried it out (most recently last spring), the IDs were too slow and often wavered among very different CV choices.
Maybe I used it wrong? I would point the viewfinder at an insect (one sitting still, like a mantid or resting moth) and look at the guesses as they were put forth. If Seek seemed to stabilize on a correct guess, I clicked. But, this all took too long and was often wrong the way I did it.
I did not think the kids would have the patience for that process, so I gave it up.
Is there a better process to use with Seek?
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I use Inaturalist over Seek mainly so that I can directly upload an observation. However, I will use Seek when I want to upload something when I am somewhere without wifi, or when my own wifi isn’t working very well.
With the amazing biological diversity of Ecuador, it is especially tragic that it is so under-sampled. I wish I could help!
We have been encouraging participants of our urban birding group to adopt the platform, however our group is quite small still, and comprised of mostly expats (which is fine, for now)
While our initiative is great, there’s no shortage of other activities and community engagement in our city, Cuenca is wonderful place for stuff like this.
it is a dream of mine and a wish to get folks from areas outside of urban areas involved with their local wildlife, with some focus on recording/measuring what they see/encounter.
(iNat would be great, but data can be spotty outside of cities)
the folks that live in rural, agrarian areas have access to certain species that can only be seen in these remote regions.
Just last weekend, a friend of mine and fellow iNaturalist, ventured far into this relatively untraveled (for birders) area, no more than an hour outside of town. The abundance of species of birds was simply remarkable,this was my first time seeing parrots in the field, simply incredible.
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They do different things, and they do things differently. So, I use both. I do not try to photograph/record everything I see. I work (in the natural sciences but it’s a lot of admin these days) and I don’t have the time to photograph and upload everything into iNat. So, I plan accordingly. For certain situations, especially when I’m not wanting to take pictures, edit later, etc., I use SEEK. Sometimes I just want a quick ID or idea as to what something might be. I love SEEK for that.
I could use the iNat app on my iPhone but I prefer SEEK for those times when again I just want a name. And sure, there are times when SEEK cannot provide a name, or only to Genus level. That’s life, and I just move along on my walk.
And then there are many times when I’m walking around town, maybe to lunch, or to a meeting in another building, and I’m with someone and I spot a new-to-me bug on a flower in some little flower bed - SEEK to me is great for this. Plus, it’s during these times when I can explain SEEK and iNat to someone else.
I’ve “pushed” iNat to any number of folks but they find it a bit intimidating and to be honest, most aren’t interested to that level. But they do like to concept behind SEEK and so I see it as one way to potentially hook people into observing nature more.
SEEK to me is about easily engaging people to observe nature. iNat is not easy. The introductory guidelines are barely sufficient to understand what to do, how to do it, etc. I love using iNat but it has been a 10 year struggle. Hats off to the poor moderators for answering all my questions (and some admitting that the guidelines could be better).
I’ve worked with kids, mostly teens, a lot the past 2 decades (part of my job at a state natural science museum). SEEK is a great way to get them started on exploring the things we see. Sometimes they will continue on to iNat but even then to explore, not upload things. Again that’s a harder sell - to fully embrace the iNat platform. When people (general public) hear that iNat is “more scientific” that just scares them off of it.
So in the end, there are barriers to using iNat (and using it correctly) and if you are in the general public, you probably won’t get involved with it. That’s just how I see it playing out in my area, with folks on my natural history trips (even other colleagues of mine who lead trips, but won’t use iNat). Whereas SEEK is easy to use, understand, fun, and, free (other ID apps begin free but then want a paid subscription).
I think we can see that I find SEEK to be a great gateway to nature, and sometimes iNaturalist itself. And again I also use iNat and I wish I had more time for it. I devote my iNat to specific “projects” of mine. I’m a bird researcher/educator and my bird stuff goes to eBird or the Federal Bird Bandling Lab (I tag a lot of birds). But for my non-bird interests, I use iNat. And my “projects” these days are my neighborhood, the private property where I have one bird study (to document the non-bird stuff), and a focus on hymenoptera, odonata, lepidoptera, and diptera. Those all go to iNat (but I have 100’s of photos in limbo).
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Thats Awesome that the park does that.
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I have limited space on my phone, so I prioritize iNat over Seek. Seek would give me faster plant IDs and help me get more confident with them faster, but waiting and posting them on iNat later means I get more precise IDs from people. Posting them on iNat also means they are there for posterity; I can return to them to remember past experiences, and maybe someone will find something notable in them. Especially with arthropods, they take a long time to get IDs but there’s a higher chance of finding something notable, and human expertise is required to notice those examples.
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This is a fast option, too. CV in demo mode:
https://www.inaturalist.org/computer_vision_demo
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This is great news which I’d not heard of until now. I will give it a try on my phone at some point.
In my admittedly limited time with SEEK (compared to what I imagine others have done with it) I’ve had pretty good success with the ID’s (I am content with Genus level). But I’m always up for trying these new options… and sharing with others who ask me about such things.
thanks.
Seek doesn’t need an internet connection. When I’m out hiking, and see some plant I’m not sure of, I’ll use Seek to get an idea of what it might be, because iNat requires an internet connection, and Seek doesn’t. For iNat, I take photos when I’m out observing, but only add them to iNat when I get home to my desktop computer.
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Northern Flickers
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