Maybe iNaturalist is the Travelogue I'll Actually Use
For a long time now, I've been terrible at getting around to sharing photos. I love to take them, but when I go on the kind of trip or have the kind of adventure that many people my age would immediately plaster all over Facebook or Instagram, I tend to never get around to posting the photos. Instead I keep them tucked away on a hard drive as a visual diary to periodically revisit when I'm feeling nostalgic. But now iNaturalist seems poised to change that in its own way.
Last weekend we took a little jaunt to the Fergus Scottish Festival in Fergus, Ontario where I took many wonderful photos of pipe bands and caber-tossers and adorable children dancing the highland fling. A week later, those photos still sit tucked away in my digital vault. Perhaps I'll get around to sharing a few later this weekend, but my first instinct was to make sure that I got my iNaturalist updates in, posting the plants and animals I encountered in the nearby Elora Gorge.
Is it because I feel like there's more of a point to iNaturalist? Maybe, but I certainly believe there's value in sharing fun experiences with people you love, too. Is it because I'm personally more interested in learning the name of a spider than remembering the name of a bagpipe-based rock band*? This seems more likely. Maybe I'm just more motivated by seeing a "Research Grade" listing over a "Like".
Whatever the appeal, I'm already thinking about past trips and trying to remember how many photos I took that would be close enough and clear enough to record a natural encounter. I have a feeling there might be a lot, and maybe now I'll actually give them a life outside my hard drive.
*They were called the Red Hot Chili Pipers, which is actually quite easy to remember whether or not I post about them on Facebook.
