I’ve been known to remark that botanists are one of the few notionally motile lifeforms that could get overtaken by a glacier…everyone’s squatting down admiring the krummholz, and POW.
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As an “amateur” botanist with a fast-walking family I can confirm that this is true :). I am also known for lagging behind and then shouting “wait! Come look at this cool plant!” much to the dismay of everyone ahead of me.
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Here’s one that happened recently:
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There’s a bug on the kitchen floor. There are also three other lifeforms: two kittens and one human on all fours (that is you) trying to figure out what it is.
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you then spent fifteen minutes trying to get the bug outside
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your pets have actually inadvertently helped you by either reacting to something (allowing you to find something when you intervene), forcing you to lay on the ground to be with them (allowing you to see the tiny bug on the ground), or sleeping on you (forcing you to ID things on iNat to pass the time or be still long enough to hear/see something)
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Did none of the cats eat the “bug”? Mine does, and then barfs it back up again.
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My cat often eats the crickets that escape from me when I try to feed my bearded dragon.
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I have to point out that the call used for Bald Eagles in movies actually belongs to a Red-Tailed Hawk every time there’s one on screen.
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this has driven me nuts for years! Welcome to the forum, @tgbirdnerd. That and tropical or water-specific species in completely incorrect areas or times of year.
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I think it’s the California Tree Frog (or maybe Northern Pacific Tree Frog?), whose call is used in films all the time for nighttime scenes in jungles and forests, that would appear to have a global distribution and even occurs on other planets.
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sounds like a debate around geographic distribution-based subspecies is imminent.
That I just said that, is another way I know I’m seriously into iNat.
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…when you go out in the garden early in the morning without your smartphone, being still tired and thinking: it’s cold outside, so what could possibly show up - and then see a fly you need both for your garden and your state list, sitting still on the ground and being perfectly identifiable, and which might never show up again there. And then still being mad at yourself although it happened almost a week ago…
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I cried inside when I got to this part. NO! Never walk or look outside or anywhere without your camera handy! If shower cameras were a thing (not creepy just waterproof cameras that you keep in the shower?) I’d have one for the inevitable insects that sometimes visit me there.
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try and explain that to visitors who use your bathroom…!
I had a spate of visitors, and then a few days afterward noticed I had a dozen specimen jars sitting on the window-sill, ready to catch the moths that would fly in through the window to the heat lamp. I can’t recall if they gave me any funny looks…
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While exploring a new local park, your phone gives an “OUT OF SPACE” message and you are devastated. There’s so much more trail to cover! Why now?!
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I can definitely relate, but my dog doesn’t like strenuous exercise so she doesn’t mind the ‘waiting’ around part ;).
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you consider painting the front door and the whole house exterior and your options only include insect-photography-friendly colors
when looking for real estate: “yes yes, price per square foot…what about the biodiversity and native species per square foot?”.
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I resisted cloud storage for a long time, well, was forced to use DropBox in school, but still avoided it. OneDrive (1 TB or something) came with purchasing Windows…so I’ve been using it for almost a year, and it’s really awesome to never have your phone fill up from pictures/videos, no matter what. :) The only thing I don’t like is that I have to open up the OneDrive app on my phone for it to sync to my laptop (frustrating until I figured it out). I guess that prevents it uploading things you don’t want on the cloud, though.
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You know you’re seriously into iNat when you start taking pictures of dead bugs to see what they’re and also to make them count in Seek ;).
Also, weird looks as well, lol.
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I don’t think I would go for the snakes, maybe butterflies though ;).
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I got in trouble on that one 
so I left
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…When google maps says it will take 30 minutes to walk somewhere, you double that to account for the time taken to make observations.
to the point that certain places look like this:
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