Endless observations...

I have FINALLY finished uploading the pics from the Pat Mayse BioBlitz. 193 species so far, and 78 lifers! Not bad at all for a day and a half! I wish I'd been able to stay for the 2nd night of mothing.

I think I'll switch to uploading the pics from our City Nature Challenge Celebration yesterday, and follow that up with a bunch of random observations that have been piling up since Costa Rica.

Speaking of which, I haven't even finished day ONE yet. SO many more to go, but @sambiology keeps asking me to follow him around to all these events and ID the things he doesn't know. At least his groupies are good company! :P

More iNatting plans for next weekend, so I'm just going to keep pushing through. A BIG THANKS to everyone who has helped me ID, or just laughed at my crazy IDs and politely corrected me. I would spend all day researching and making notes on how to ID all the new things I see, but then my family would cut me off my nature obsession completely.

Julkaistu toukokuu 21, 2017 05:25 IP. käyttäjältä kimberlietx kimberlietx

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Haha! I'm watching that life-list of yours just growing and growing and growing!

It is indeed a challenge to upload everything after a fun trip though...

I'm curious how some others deal with this: @kueda @loarie @tiwane @gcwarbler @greglasley -- after you guys go on a trip and observe EVERYTHING, how long does it usually take you to upload everything? :)

Lähettänyt sambiology melkein 7 vuotta sitten

Well, since 95%+ of my obs are animal and not vegetable (unless I start to feel guilty because I know @sambiology is watching me through ESP and waiting for a plant obs), I normally upload everything the night (rarely have I approached 100 obs in a day) I have taken the shots. But ask @gcwarbler about that....he knows I am obsessive/compulsive. Another thing...I have noticed that a number of people on iNat may see 25 Great Egrets at one location or area in a day and create a separate iNat obs for each individual....I just don't do that. I'll normally do one obs and state I saw perhaps 25 different individuals in that area in the remarks section. That may limit the number of obs I have to do each night as well. I personally feel that creating the data point for the species at a time and location is the most important rather than trying to create a separate obs for each individual. How could you possibly deal with insects, etc. But that is just me. Since I generally don't have to do any research to ID most of my obs of say birds, odonates, butterflies, etc., that saves me time since I already know what they are. I get hung up on trying to ID moths, beetles, etc., but struggle through best I can.

Lähettänyt greglasley melkein 7 vuotta sitten

I'm pretty sloppy (quantity over quality) as you can tell by looking at my obs so I'm not sure my system will work for everyone. But I usually walk around with my iPhone and my DSLR with a macro (which means I have to ignore far away things like birds, since I've gotten too lazy to haul a telephoto and switch lenses). But I generally just use my iPhone for all plants, reptiles, amphibians, and big/posing insects. I use my macro for little/quick insects and maybe the occasional tiny plant. But with this system 90% of what I have is on the iPhone. I turn auto-upload off so when I get back to wifi I just start uploading all that - it usually takes 20 min or so to upload like 100 obs. Meanwhile I plug my camera into my computer and whip through all my photos in lightroom deleting and cropping and then export them and drag them into the iNat web uploader where I combine mulitple photos of the same thing and add locations (I'm usually pretty sloppy with locations for these points adding a point with 5km accuracy or so). I also usually leave all my IDs blank until after I post them and then use the Identify tools (set to my own obs) to just whip through and quickly add IDs to everything at once. This system works for me and doesn't take too much time, but I also realize that none of my obs are the works-of-arts folks like Greg are uploading with absolutely stunning photos... maybe someday I'll learn how to take better photos ;)

Lähettänyt loarie melkein 7 vuotta sitten

I tend to be slow and methodical...about everything in my life. Same for iNat uploads. I have two regrettable qualities which slow me down:
-- My preference is to try to ID stuff on my own first (through MPG, BG, floras, field guides, etc.) and only later rely on iNat to guide me on relevant taxa. This means I spend a LOT of time wandering through those sources and/or keying things out. Image by image. This is a better learning experience for me, doing it the "hard" or old-fashioned way. However, in times of massive observations (e.g. BioBlitzes), I do find myself leaning on the collective wisdom of colleagues and participants. It can be much faster, but I'm always cautious about IDs derived from field pronoucements (my own included) or by "group think".
-- I tend to be a perfectionist with regards to image quality. (I use such low-end equipment, I have to do my best to make my images presentable.) That means I crop and rotate nearly every image of anything. This relates to my childhood insect collecting and butterfly spreading--I want each image to be as useful as a mounted, spread specimen, to the extent that photos can provide that.
As a result of these tedious treatments of my observations, I rarely upload anything the day of an observation and often don't upload during a extended trip, prefering to get back to my home computer to accomplish all the research and manipulation. For something like these bioblitzes where I may accumulate 1000 to 1500 images in a 4 or 5 day period, it will typically take me a week or more to finish all the editing and uploading. And of course, life gets in the way--even in retirement--so I sit here at home a full week after the Pat Mayse BioBlitz and I'm barely through half of my images.

Lähettänyt gcwarbler melkein 7 vuotta sitten

One reason I personally don't combine multiple observations of one species is because what looks to ME to be the same, has turned out later to be separate species after someone experienced looks at it. It also helps me to have multiple images to compare subtle nuances in wing patterns, or different views of the same thing. And I'm in the "sloppy style" with Scott, too.

Lähettänyt kimberlietx melkein 7 vuotta sitten

I have different methods based on what I'm doing and how I feel. Sometimes I get swept up in the document-all-the-X mentality, usually flowering plants, and then I try to get as much with my phone as possible. Lower quality, slower to record in the field, but less overall time spent per observation since there's no post-processing besides identification. I tend to only behave this way in situations where I know most of what I'm looking at, so only a minority don't get ID'd to species before upload. I agree with Chuck that I learn more when I take the time to ID before, but the things I can't ID to species rarely get ID'd before I can revisit them, so that's actually not too much of a problem.

During bioblitzes or other contexts where I feel some obligation to observe more things, I'll add my SLR+macro (maybe with a flash) to the above and shoot bugs and birds with that. Not adequate for most birds, barely adequate for most bugs without a flash, but better than the phone. That adds post-processing time, which I do in Lightroom. My SLR has integrated GPS so I don't have to add locations, but I am kind of picky about appearance and cropping and such, so it takes some time. I usually try to upload the same day, or as soon as I can.

MOST of the time, though, I'm totally lackadaisical, because frankly documenting as much as I can feels like more work than fun. Usually I just record things that catch my eye or seem interesting or prompt some kind of a question. I'll use my SLR for insects, unknowns, and anything else that seems like it could make a good photo, and use my phone for most other things. I usually add IDs to all my phone stuff right when I get home, then let it upload while I take a shower, and try to get to any SLR shots in the evening. Since I probably saved the weird stuff I need to figure out for the SLR shots, that gives me some time to consider them individually before upload.

Lähettänyt kueda melkein 7 vuotta sitten

During the City Nature Challenge I tried the in-app observation method, which I previously found to be too slow in the field. I was exploring mostly on my own for relatively short periods (~1 hour at a time) during the CNC, and I think it saved me time in the long run from having to download, bulk upload, etc. I'm trying to use that more. I rarely have another camera in the field with me, so it's basically just weighing the 3 approaches of 1) adding in the app in the field 2) photographing and adding in the app later or 3) downloading and using the bulk tool. I like that the app captures location uncertainty more easily. Once I get a backlog of more than 100 or so observations it takes me at least a few evenings to get them all uploaded. If I'm exploring a new to me area or a place that I know hasn't been documented much on iNaturalist, my mental rules are that I photograph anything blooming, moving, or dead. It means I get plants that will hopefully be identifiable, I try to get animals when I spot them, and dead stuff is the easiest to photograph. :-)

Lähettänyt carrieseltzer melkein 7 vuotta sitten

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