ah, yeah that makes sense ? I should not assume anything is in the US
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…you start wearing a bright safety vest so the cops stop bothering you
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…it takes you several hours to take a hike while searching the skies, shrubbery, and soil for life as your family simultaneously wants a steady workout and keeps nagging you to move along.
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I love this thread so much! I relate to so many of the statements - good to know I’m not alone.
… you abandon all hope of ever having a car not covered in dust because you live in Australia and all the good spots require driving down dirt roads.
… you plan a trip to Europe with your Mom, and realize all of the places you want to go are parks and reserves rather than cultural hotspots.
… after spending three more hours than you originally intended taking photos, you go back to your car and immediately take a picture of an insect that has landed on the inside of the windscreen before you drive off.
… the majority of your hard drive is taken up with RAW images of iNat photos.
… you prefer reading field guides to science fiction.
… you wake up in the middle of the night and check if anyone IDed that bizarre insect you saw yet.
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omg you just reminded me…
…when you see a spider on your car, and it takes off quickly to the other side, you scramble over the bonnet and struggle to get out your camera to get the shot… oh, middle of town, and a few strange looks… but got the shot!
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… you’re out looking for cottonmouths with two other people, one of them gets a tick and the other two of you must get pics for iNat before smashing it with a rock.
… you use iNat as a verb.
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“iNatting” is in heavy rotation in my current vocabulary.
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… you find yourself eagerly IDing images of huge Australian Huntsman Spiders that a mere six months ago would have given you nightmares.
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Yep, I do that.
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…you continue to disappoint social expectations: when you arrive anywhere, new or old, you frequently check light fixtures, plants and any other things that might be living or have a hiding place for something living often before greeting or acknowledging other humans.
…In mothing season, you have been known to literally run away from conversations to chase a subject or can be seen “window-shopping” without ever paying attention to anyone’s merchandise (unless it’s a book store with a new field guide in the window) rather, you are looking for moths and other organisms attracted to the light so you can iNat them. This is always seen suspiciously by strangers or at least, triggers their curiosity,especially when you are “window-shopping” at non-retail establishments like offices, banks,and post offices. I always explain myself…mostly nicely.
…you also can be seen waiting in Doctors’ offices reading a stack of field guides you’ve hidden in your purse and possibly wearing ear plugs while the other humans are watching daytime talk shows and reading the “10 fastest/bestest/cheapest/easiesy ways/things/tricks/tips/cures to (whatever) your life” in awful mind-sucking magazines
I’m having a hard time finding one I don’t relate to.
definitely not alone!
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- You take great photos… of things no one outside of iNat would care about.
- You imagine people seeing you on the phone constantly and then assuming you’re just one of those social media-obsessed thirty-somethings checking Facebook and unable to recognize the beauty of nature right in front of them.
- You get into photography, but have no real interest in trying to sell your photos because that takes too much time. Meanwhile you spend gobs of time trying to crop and center each photo.
- Your dad remarks on how much you like to photograph insects. You have to admit it’s less that and because they’re easier to photograph.
- your little nephew is scared of encountering snakes in the woods. You, meanwhile, want to.
- You keep having to apologise for your jeans, which are apparently made for women who never bend down or kneel to take photos.
- you obscure everything because you’re the only iNatter in your area, and people can probably still locate you based on the copious observations in one area.
- Family and friends know to text you photos of something weird they found.
- Family and friends think you’re an expert on all things nature. Meanwhile, most of your observations are locked at dicots level, you can’t ID trees worth a damn, and bird calls are limited to ‘i think it’s a bird’.
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…your taxon of interest has nearly 15,000 observations, but you feel really surprised when one gets past you without giving it a proper ID or filing it in your mind to ID later.
…iNaturalist has led you to specialize in a larger group of organisms than you would have before leading you to go from restricting yourself to a group with 300-400 species to a group with over 2,000 that includes the previous group.
…you spend hours writing journal posts to save time when identifying to keep from writing down the distinguishing characteristics again.
…the first thing you do in the morning and one of the last things you do at night is to see if there are any more members from your taxon of interest that have been posted.
…you actively try to see every plant species in your region.
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I feel this, so much. That or ‘tiny insect is on my arm, time for people to get a closeup of my brilliant, beautiful Midwestern US skin that I definitely take care of’.
At least I’m used to my nails looking terrible due to always having hobbies and jobs that require them to be trimmed down and sometimes stained with pigment.
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I understand this one well, if it’s an orchid, I can usually ID it at least to genus, but pretty much anything else is a mystery to me.
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Yep, except why limit yourself to morning and night? I check at least 10 times a day! 
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Hilarious, and I relate to so many of your points! Plus:
- You are determined to plough through and ID 50 observations, only to discover 30 minutes later that you now know about 14 subspecies of some plant and you’re still on the first obs.
- You get intensely excited when you realize that all the crappy nature photos you’ve taken over the past 20 years will actually be great quality for iNat.
- You use iNat maps as a way to figure out where to go hiking to see the latest spring wildflowers (thanks, SoCal iNatters!).
- So what if it’s 1:30 am and I have telecons at 8 am. I have replies to my Forum posts!
- You practice iNat Yoga: you are constantly stiff from the contortions you go through to get just the right angle for the perfect shot, exacerbated by oxygen deprivation from holding your breath so you don’t move while taking the shot.
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…your spouse knows to build in extra time on Interstate highway trips so you can check for your specialty at every rest stop
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Exactly I do a trip to Tucson, Az for Cloudcroft, No
I should take 5 hours 45 mins… it takes me around 12 hours to complete the trip.
my wife is like what happened this time or what did you see Lol…
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hahahah! Totally into iNat Yoga myself. Seriously, I think it’s improving my core.
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Your camera isn’t good enough to take far shots, so you try to take photos through a lens of your binoculars.
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