sambiology's Journal

I hit my 20,000th observation in the Big Thicket last weekend. For the past 595 days, I've uploaded at least one observation. I've been fortunate to document over 3000 species of living organisms. Most of all, I've enjoyed the heck out of all of this.

Those are just 'braggadocious' numbers, but they've solidified a belief. I truly believe in the power of this tool, iNaturalist. Why?

1. Exploration. I've explored more and more of the outdoors with iNaturalist than I ever have before. I'm excited to go to a new location, even if it's just a new park not far from where I live, just to see what I can find. Traveling further off is even more exciting -- EVERYTHING feels new!
2. Broadening scope. In the past, I had been fairly narrowly focused on plants... When I focused so much on plants, I was almost oblivious to the things that weren't plants. With this tool, I notice the entire ecosystem -- and I want to learn all of it.
3. Knowledge. I've learned a tremendous amount from observing things. To learn the name of something is the first step in appreciating it, and I've so enjoyed learning many new names. It can be frustrating when I can't narrow down the species on an observation, but it's so exciting when there's new things for me to learn about a critter or plant that I share the planet with.
4. Community. I've been lucky to meet some incredible people on iNaturalist -- and this has led me to meet some of them in person. But even for those that I've only known digitally, I feel a real connection to my fellow naturalists. This is quite powerful -- and heartwarming.
5. Professional development. In my current job as an urban biologist for Texas Parks and Wildlife, I focus on outreach, technical guidance, and research. All of these are accomplished with iNaturalist, and I feel as though I'm becoming more and more of a regional expert in the flora and fauna of North Central Texas.
6. Power to change the world. Ok, so this one is maybe the most optimistic or "pie-in-the-sky," and perhaps I'm just extremely biased and looking at the world with rose-colored glasses, but this sort of tool can change culture and society. If we were to value the world based on the other critters that we share the planet with, I think it would modify the way that we do things. I can only speak for myself... It has modified how I view the world -- I look at an area with hopes of finding biodiversity. A park with a 'wild area' is by far more valuable to me than a park that is fully manicured. I think this can spread to others. In my conversations with my fellow iNatters, I've heard that it has modified the way that they view the outdoors as well.

Those that know me know that I'm crazy about iNaturalist. I'm optimistic about the future of wildlife. iNaturalist is a tool that I use the change the world -- one observation and one identification at a time! :)

Hey friends,

Had a BLAST with lots of great iNaturalist friends at the Big Thicket BioBlitz and I'm just about to go down to Conroe for the Master Naturalist conference, so I haven't been able to devote as much time to ID'ing. Don't fret -- after this weekend I'll get back into the routiene of ID'ing as many of the great observations coming out of TX.

After the bioblitz at the Big Thicket, I'm feeling more inspired than ever to spread the message of nature appreciation and this tool of engagement in iNaturalist. Sooner before later I'll toss some words together on a journal entry.

Stay tuned! :)

My dear friends,

NEXT WEEKEND! Big Thicket time! I am so dang excited about this. Most of all, I'm excited to spend time with you all and having the chance to meet many of you for the first time. I'll be bringing some name tags that should include your real name and your iNat name. :)

Truth be told, I've gone back and forth on doing an itinerary with scheduled walks and taxon level time periods or whatever... Instead, I just want everyone to explore. Explore like crazy. Document everything, especially the stuff that you don't know! I'm excited about the plants, of course, but I'm going to challenge myself to be attentive to all of the other stuff. I challenge the same thing for you. If you're a birder, focus some on the fungi. If you're into dragonflies, take some observations of plants. If you're into plants, look for beetles. Let's really expand our naturalist interests, yeah?!?

That being said, I think my main plan is to be at the visitor center in the big thicket (6102 FM 420, Kountze, TX 77625) on Friday, 14 October at 4:30ish or so. I hope you can be there then too. I want this get-together to be mostly about camaraderie. Let's get to know each other. :)

Oh, and yes, make a bazillion observations of new stuff for you too. Right now, the Big Thicket only has 263 observations on iNat. Compare that with other national parks... Golden gate: 10,262; Pinnacles: 3,519; Joshua Tree: 2,868; Death Valley: 2,694; Mount Rainier: 1,342; Yellowstone: 1,010; Big Bend: 1,348... Let's bump up Texas with this event to celebrate the National Park Service initiative! :)

Some folks have been asking me if they can make observations/explore more on Thursday, or during the day Friday, or more on Sunday. YES! Please, oh please, devote some extra time if you're able to explore more. I wish wish wish I could stay for many days, but alas, I'm just going to be able to be there on Friday evening - Sunday noonish.

A few logistical things:

1. Food. I'm not quite sure what to do about food yet. I'll bring some snacks and finger foods on Friday, and I'm sure I'll pack a few lunches and stuff for the weekend. If you're able to bring some food to share with friends, please do, but feel no obligations. I'm sure that Kountze or surrounding areas will have some fast food joints or grocery stores or something. Eh. I'm not really coming to the Big Thicket for food -- I'm coming more for the friendship and exploration! :)
2. Lodging. My wife and I are staying at Super 8 in Kountze. I've heard from others that are staying at Relax Inn, Cabins in the Thicket, and even at the next door state park.
3. T-shirts. I got t-shirt sizes from many of you, but not quite all of you. I'll be bringing down a whole slew of shirts -- hopefully I have your size. If you're able to trade 10 bucks for the shirt, that would be cool. I'll be bringing $400 worth of shirts! They're just standard iNat shirts -- went back and forth on making an event shirt, but I kinda decided to make these just standard -- promoting iNat and us as iNatters.
4. Safety. Make sure to be safe. :) Bug spray, boots, clothes, etc. Not sure what the weather will be like. I'm almost scared to look. Hopefully it'll be fine, but it may likely be wet. Prepare.
5. Batteries for cameras. Bring extra. ;)

I do hope you're able to make it. If you're not able to make it, that's totally ok, but I foresee this being a great event of getting to know each other.

~Sam
sambiology

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.

Elizabeth and I just got back from the Big Bend Nature Fest (http://www.bigbendnaturefest.com/), and we had a magnificent time. It rained every day, and Big Bend was painted with green as a response -- the plants were having just as good of a time as we did! :)

I took pictures of nearly every living thing in all of Big Bend too. ;) Stay tuned for a flooded dashboard of observations! Also, I will try to upload them first, and then work on ID's... I'll have a lot of work to do to narrow down some of the plants and bugs, but it's great fun too. :)

Also, it re-motivated me to explore more and more. iNaturalist is the tool that I'll take with me -- it's a wonderful companion.

Special thanks to @greglasley @gcwarbler @earthgrazer for making this trip especially wonderful. :)

Stay tuned!

Hey friends,

I've noticed quite a few new users of iNat, and with the new users come a LOT of new observations... A LOT of these observations then need some ID's! So, if you have some spare time, scroll through the ID please section. It's a great way to welcome the new users, and it inspires them to get more observations and higher quality observations too.

Here is a link with the filters that I use... I deselect the "needs ID" -- I've found that some observations are mis-ID'ed (I'm not throwing stones because I've been wrong thousands of times when I give ID's to folks!).

http://www.inaturalist.org/observations/identify?quality_grade=any

And hey, use the comments too -- be sure to say "neat observation" or something along those lines.

I got into iNat because of the welcoming community, so I sure want to reciprocate that welcome. Hope you do too! Thanks to everyone that's already been doing lots of ID's!

Check out this clip about iNat:

http://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2016/08/06/488830352/the-app-that-aims-to-gamify-biology-has-amateurs-discovering-new-species

Features @stalinsm @annikaml @lauren46 with @elizrose and @briang in the background!

:)

So, I've been really enjoying the new observations screen the more I play with it (major kudos to @kueda @loarie @alexshepard @joelle @pleary ). It is also inspiring me to observe more of the common stuff... I know, I know, I know... I already observe LOTS of super common stuff, but the observation screen is providing me more reason to continue this.

For instance, when you search observations in Texas, view species, change the view to grid, then BAM -- you've got a digital field guide. Narrow it down to 'plants' or 'insects' and you've got the most frequently observed species in Texas. Narrow it down to county, and then you've got a species guide for that county/area... I'm loving it. :)

Some of the guides I like to use:

Birds of Texas:
http://www.inaturalist.org/observations?place_id=18&subview=grid&taxon_id=3&view=species

Plants of Texas:
http://www.inaturalist.org/observations?place_id=18&subview=grid&taxon_id=47126&view=species

Dragonflies/Damselflies of Texas:
http://www.inaturalist.org/observations?place_id=18&subview=grid&taxon_id=47792&view=species

Now, these need to be filled up with the common critters/plants! Here's some more encouragement to observe stuff, even if it's super common. :)

I, like many, MANY others, am certifiably addicted to iNaturalist. I only half-way joke when I tell people about getting an iNat tattoo. In my opinion it is by far the most powerful tool in a (current or future) naturalists' toolbox to learning about and sharing nature. It has and continues to revolutionize the way that I go outside. I also see this happening in others through first hand experience -- I've seen folks discover iNat and almost instantaneously become more interested in nature. It's such a good thing.

The community of naturalists that iNat caters to is impressive indeed. How many times have I posted a snail to have a malacologist ID it for me?!? How many times have I posted a little dinky weed and a botanist guides me to the right species? I'll toss up a dragonfly observation, and the genuine experts help me. This is revolutionary stuff. I believe this sort of thing can and does change the world -- or at least my view of the world.

When something changes, it causes a guttural reaction ("ugh") -- as mentioned earlier by @greglasley , I think, it's probably just human nature. I get comfortable with something, and then it changes -- causing me to feel uncomfortable again. This typically happens with technology in my case as I'm pretty much a luddite...

So, I'm curious how others deal with changes like these. Functionality of the dashboard is essentially the same, but it just looks and feels different. The same occurred with the new observations screen and the identify tool. They're great, but definitely different. Definitely uncomfortable to start out with.

So, what do you think of the new changes to iNat?

Hey friends, if you want to come out to a fun little bioblitz in Dallas, there's one going on at William Blair Park on Saturday, June 11 from 9 am to noon (or whenever you want to leave...). Fun little bit of info: this park has not been explored too much (at least on iNat), so know what we'll find! :)
http://www.inaturalist.org/projects/william-blair-jr-park-dallas-park

Tag some folks that you think might be interested in this. I'll go ahead and start:
@aguilita @annikaml @ameec @andyk @apcorboy @atassin @beeblossomseeds @bob777 @briang @brentano @cari @cgritz @charley @chuckd @dfwuw @gregfw @griff @hawkilitle @interlibrarylowe @jblinde @jenniferkatestuart @karenkroesen @karinsaucedo @kimberlietx @kimberlywalks @krstldwn @bogslogger @magatr0n @marcie12h @mchlfx @melindawpajak @naturemom @ntc @phlank @picklepastures @rangerrick @rehb @rhgrayson @rjtaylor @ryan3 @sbetzen @txlorax @zooga1961

I'm sure that I'm leaving off lots of people, so share with your friends. It should be fun!