…you’re on holidays in California, and you know your work colleagues from your company in New Zealand are holidaying in Australia only because you see their observations pop up on iNat.
9 Likes
I just did that on Thursday to deal with some annoyingly skittish birds. I do not think it is that unusual, and I would do it more often if I had good binoculars. Also, those clip-on lenses for iPhones use this idea in a more compact, hands-free, and convenient way.
1 Like
Rocks are American toads.
Dead leaves clinging to the trees are saturniid cocoons.
Mulch is highly confusing and takes many forms.
A mylar candy wrapper is a shiny carabid beetle…
10 Likes
Oooooh! What brand of endoscope camera do you have??
1 Like
you spend 2 hours reading through every comment on this thread instead of studying for finals
33 Likes
I’m kind of doing this right now :D
4 Likes
Along similar lines - you get strange looks and comments from people when you are searching a wall (with a camera) for any insects that might be around. Or, if you see one, and have forgotten your camera, drive home and then back hoping all the way that the moth will still be there.
10 Likes
You know you’re seriously into iNat when you go to the trouble of coming back as many times as I have. :)
5 Likes
I put people on speaker and take the photo–but only because I’m in the middle of nowhere and my friends are unlikely to be overheard.
3 Likes
You are slower than your five- and eight-years-old kids when walking through a forest/beach/park.
13 Likes
…you decide birds are actually kind of boring 
9 Likes
@caththalictroides I got a cheap one on Amazon for $35. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01MYTHWK4/
1 Like
Thank you!
…you put up better anti-chicken fencing around the weeds than the veggies, because the weeds are wild and haven’t flowered yet
…you’ve accidentally become an expert on Petty Spurges, because you hate them, because they’re the only weed you see in your garden
…you’ve been taunted by a cooler animal running/flying past as you try to take a photo of something else
26 Likes
… when your photo is the default photo of a species (admittedly a lot easier here in Spain ;-) )
6 Likes
How dare you!?!?!?
6 Likes
…you stop caring what your left thumbnail looks like.
20 Likes
I agree, but Mantodea, now that is an interesting taxon!
4 Likes
What is worse than that is when you go to chase the cooler thing and miss it. Then you sadly go back to the first organism, and it is gone. You end up with no observation.
I only know of one species that has my photo as its default: Aromia bungii. I was quite happy to see it there.
11 Likes
That’s for sure. Now that you mention it, I’m pretty sure that if, for some reason, I was really curious about the typical interval between my fingernail clippings, I would have little trouble making an analysis using incidental data from my iNat observations.
I do also refer to my observation calendar when I’m trying to figure out what I did on a given day in general, or which day a particular memory comes from, even when it’s not directly iNat-related.
6 Likes