UK Hoverflies (Syrphidae)'s Journal

One of the things we definitely don't do well on iNaturalist is to annotate observations. The upload interface itself doesn't help, providing no obvious way to add annotations when you are uploading. I've heard from recorders at a number of UK schemes including HRS that this lack of annotations is a bit of a bugbear for them. For example, it is perilous to use observations without a life stage annotation for phenology studies (Lepidopterists are particularly keen on life stage if you do any mothing/caterpillaring!).

I'll post about adding annotations to other people's observations soon - but did you know that it is possible to add annotations to your own observations at the point of upload? (Note: this only applies to the website - I still don't think it's possible with the apps)

HRS receives the annotations sex and life stage, so these are worth adding. Don't add an annotation you aren't sure of however, because annotations can't be corrected by other people. Life stage is dead easy though - and since almost everything is usually adult you can select them all and add the annotation to them all at once! And information about determining the sex of hoverflies can be found here.

So how do you do it?

1. Select the observations you want to give one particular annotation value (i.e. life stage = adult, or sex=male)

To select a group of observations that are next to each other in the uploader click on the first, then hold shift and click on the last. To select observations that are not adjacent to other selected observations, select the first and then hold down control while selecting each of the others individually. All selected observations are, of course, bordered in green so you can check.

2. Click on 'Fields'

It's on the left. This is where you can search for any observation field that anyone has added to iNat. There's all sorts of random stuff in there but some of these fields are 'secretly' linked to the standard annotations!!

3. Search for and select a relevant field

Type 'sex' and you will see a field simply called 'sex' - this field works for male and female. The only thing is I can't find a way of annotating 'cannot be determined', but that is a very minor inconvenience.

Type 'Insect life stage' and you will find a field with that name. That also works. Do not be tempted to click the option 'Insect Life Stage: Adult' etc from this drop down menu, just select 'Insect Life Stage'. (Steps 3 and 4 must be performed separately, I have found.)

4. Select the desired value from the new drop down list

e.g. 'Adult' or 'Male'.

5. Click 'Add'

(Oh yes indeed - Don't forget to click 'Add'!!!!!)

I've only just discovered this - so if you come across anything else that needs to be said, please point it out in the comments!

The identify portal on the iNaturalist website is by far the quickest way to add identifications and annotations to a large number of observations.

One thing that the Hoverfly Recording Scheme - and other schemes - would like to see more of is observations being well annotated. The annotations they receive are sex and life stage. Only 1 in 5 UK hoverfly observations from 2022 have a sex annotation, and only 1 in 8 have a life stage annotation.

(See here for how to add annotations to your own observations when uploading.)

Adding annotations to others' observations is actually pretty quick - and it's a great thing to do especially if you're not yet confident to do a lot of species identifications. Last July an average of 120 UK hoverflies per day were uploaded to iNat (presumably more at the weekend and fewer in the week). I timed myself adding 120 life stage annotations for Saturday - just over 4 minutes. Sex takes a bit longer because you have to look harder - I went through 120 in six and a half minutes but only added the annotation to 80% of them, the others I was unsure of for whatever reason. (Note: your annotation will appear with a 'spinning circle' at first - you do not need to wait for the circle to stop spinning before moving on to the next observation).

The way to add annotations quickly is explained in the article about sexing hoverflies. There is also a tutorial on the iNaturalist Forum.

It seems that new Research Grade observations from iNaturalist are sent to the recording scheme often within minutes of becoming Research Grade. It is important to note that once an observation has been sent to HRS, no changes we make to it on iNat will be passed on; for that reason adding annotations to old Research Grade records does not help the recording scheme (it only has value within iNaturalist so I'm not saying it's completely pointless to do, but maybe less of a priority).

The speed with which Research Grade observations are passed on means that it's a good idea to add annotations before adding IDs if you intend to do both. The quickest way to do everything is to add annotations and IDs separately (saves a lot of clicking between tabs on each observation). What I mean is adding annotations for a while then doing IDs, rather than doing everything to one observation at a time. What I have done before is for each page of 30 observations on the identify portal, do all the annotations and then all the IDs before moving on to the next page.

The following links will hopefully prove useful, and more explanation of them is given below:

All UK Hoverflies Needing ID: What it says on the tin.
All UK Hoverflies Needing ID from the last two days: Also what it says on the tin!
All UK Hoverflies not yet identified to Genus: This is great if you are not confident at identifying particular species but want to help by getting things into the right genus.

All UK Hoverflies needing sex annotation: What it says on the tin.
All UK Hoverflies needing sex annotation from the last two days: Also what it says on the tin!
All UK Hoverflies needing sex annotation excluding difficult groups: This link only returns observations that have already been identified at least as far as genus. The groups excluded are those in which the males' eyes are separated: Subfamily Microdontinae, Subtribes Helophilina and Spheginina, Genera Lejogaster and Eristalinus (because of E sepulchrinus), and also the rare species Eristalis abusiva.

All UK Hoverflies needing life stage annotation: Observations before 2024 are excluded because the only ones left have obscured coordinates which can cause problems for HRS.
All UK Hoverflies needing life stage annotation from the last two days: What it says on the tin.

Pre-mavericksThese observations have a disagreement on the ID which may only need one more ID to resolve (depending on which way it needs to go!)