Diario de naturesarchive

Hello Field Ecologists,

Wow - what a trip we just completed. Snow, wind, rain, dunes, mountains, superblooms, sidewinders, and that's just the start!

For this iNaturalist project, please upload your photos and make sure that date/time is accurate, and the location as accurate. The project parameters will automatically include them.

You may enjoy reviewing other people's observations to help with your own ID skills, or to re-live the experience. You may also want to help identify other people's observations. But check back frequently over the next week or two because it will take some time for everyone to get their photos uploaded.

My rule of thumb for identification help is to only ID something if your level of confidence meets or exceeds the current level of identification. For example, someone might identify a plant as Rosacea (Rose family), but you may know that it's a Bitterbrush, but perhaps not know what species specifically. So you could identify it to genus, Purshia. If you don't know, leave it be with no additional ID.

By clicking around the project you can find observations in need of ID, maps, and summaries. But to make it easy:

Project Overview:https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/2024-wvc-field-ecology-spring

Project observations needing an ID: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?project_id=196174&quality_grade=needs_id&verifiable=any

Map of all observations: https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/2024-wvc-field-ecology-spring?tab=observations&subtab=map

One thing I didn't mention in the first journal post:

When submitting your observations - if you aren't sure of the specific identification, ID to the level you are comfortable. For example, maybe you know it is a plant, or perhaps you know it is a dicot. Some level of identification, even if at kingdom or phylum is better than leaving something as "unknown".

Like for so many, iNaturalist has been a life changer for me. It's a huge part of the equation that has set me on to devote my life to nature conservation.

I want to share how great iNat is and encourage more people to use it, so I've created a new podcast episode as part of my Jumpstart Nature organization:

#5: Every Observation a Discovery: How iNaturalist Changes Lives and Changes Science

This 20 minute episode shares insights and perspectives from three iNat super users, @joemdo @gyrrlfalcon and @catchang. It's jam-packed, fast moving, and hopefully entertaining! And it is narrated/hosted by Griff @griffith .

Our podcast audiences are generally "nature curious" people who are looking for inspiration to take their next step in helping the environment, i.e. generally people who aren't already using iNaturalist. So our goal was to inspire, and perhaps reveal some new ways to look at iNat.

Let me know what you think!