Help Identify Observations!

Thanks so much to everyone who made observations these past 4 days! If you have photos from the past four days that you haven't uploaded yet, you can still add them from now until May 3! The observation time has ended, but the competition is far from over! With the conclusion of the observation phase of City Nature Challenge, comes the beginning of the identification phase. This part of the competition is just as important because only observations that are identified to the species level will count towards our species total! With over 4,700 observations, we need your help assigning IDs to them all! Even if you are not an expert in identification, you can still help by adding general descriptions (like flowering plants, or beetles, or hawks) to observations that say “Unknown”. Below are brief descriptions for how to Identify Observations on your computer or smartphone.

Computer
Log in to your iNaturalist account, then go here to start identifying! This shows you all the the observations that need IDs. You can filter the observations to show you only plants or birds or bugs, etc. Find an observation that you can identify and click on it. You’ll see a text box below the photo where you can leave a comment or ID the observation. You want to click the “Suggest an Identification” tab. Start typing your ID into the “Species name” bar and select the correct species from the suggestions that appear. Click “Done”.

Smart Phone
Navigate to the Project and select the “Observations” tab from the bar at the top. There is not a way to filter the observations on a phone, so you will see all observations whether they need IDs or not. Look for a species that you can identify and tap that observation. Tap the “speech bubble” icon in the center of the screen below the photo. Tap “Suggest ID” on the bottom right. Start typing your ID into the search bar and select the correct species from the suggestions that appear. Click “Done” or “Save”.

If you have observations from April-27-30 that haven’t uploaded yet, you can still upload them before the end of May 3!

Posted on May 1, 2018 03:35 PM by jesshawk