My work flow with iNaturalist... Aka "How to be inefficent but extremely accurate!"

So, a few folks have asked me how I get lots of observations up in no time. Well, "no time" is relative. I spend lots and lots of hours on iNat every day (time well spent!)... But it also inspires me to spend more time outside to go out and explore more! :) So here's my workflow from the time I step out the door...

1. Take camera and some extra camera batteries and memory cards
2. Look for a place that I haven't been before -- a park usually, or at least different areas/places in a familiar spot
3. Take pictures of EVERYTHING! I try to just get the plants with flowers or fruits, but any bugs or birds or fungi, I do try to get. iNat has dramatically changed me in this way. I used to be solely focused on plants that I would be oblivious to all other things... With iNat as a tool, I feel like I'm truly exploring the complete ecosystem. :)
4. Get worn out and go to AC or water -- exploring can wear me out!
5. Crop pics on camera -- @gcwarbler yelled and yelled and yelled at me to crop stuff, so now I do it all the time! :)
6. Get home to and transfer pictures to computer.
7. Use the old photo uploader (sorry @kueda @tiwane @loarie -- I'm a creature of habit!)
8. Manually put in location and narrow down accuracy circle to around 4 m. I don't use the GPS on my camera as I've had some trouble with it before -- and when I photograph a bird waaaay far away, I want the observation to show exactly where the bird was. Anyways, old school, but I just manually put in my location. I rarely obscure observations, especially when in a public park. If I'm on private land, of course I obscure, but I'm not a big fan of the obscured observation -- they end up making my map look messy.
9. Put in a little narrative on the observation of where and why I was there. This doesn't have any scientific value, perhaps, but it does personalize my observations. I like that. :)
10. I don't always add a specific ID right away -- I feel that it's ok to not know exactly what it is that I saw before I upload it.
    
11. "Save and add another" -- rinse and repeat! I'm usually up to about an observation a minute or so... So, 50 observations uploaded in an hour, give or take.
12. Work on ID'ing! I sometimes upload stuff first, and then come back to it later on to work on ID's. I'm super thankful for all of those that help me out with ID's. I try my best to reciprocate that for others. I do mis-ID a lot, but I'm continually learning too. In the big scale of things, I think engagement is more important than being "correct." :)

So, that's pretty much my regular work flow when it comes to uploading observations. It's definitely not super efficient, but I like that it's pretty dang accurate.

Posted on September 18, 2016 12:36 AM by sambiology