Diario del proyecto Socially Distant Bioblitz (4/5/2020)

Welcome to the iNaturalist community and database! Below please find several links to help get you started with the iNaturalist website and smartphone app (recommended, yet optional). You may need to copy and paste the website urls into your web browser if no hyperlinks appear.

Getting Started: https://www.inaturalist.org/pages/getting+started
Video Tutorials: https://www.inaturalist.org/pages/video+tutorials
General Help Page: https://www.inaturalist.org/pages/help

In order for your observations to be included in the Socially Distant BioBlitz, you'll need to take the following steps. Experienced iNaturalist users can skip to Step 3.

1. Log In or Sign Up for iNaturalist (https://www.inaturalist.org/).
2. Download the iNaturalist App to your Smartphone (recommended), or learn how to upload your camera photos to the iNaturalist website (https://www.inaturalist.org/pages/getting+started#web).
3. Email your iNaturalist username to event coordinators Steven Lamonde (slamonde@antioch.edu) and Sara Lobdell (slobdell@antioch.edu). This will guarantee we add your name to the project filter, which looks for observations from specific iNaturalist users (you!).
4. Open the Socially Distant BioBlitz iNaturalist project page.
5. Click on the JOIN Button in the upper right of the project page so you can easily navigate back to the project from your iNaturalist home page. Note, this step does not replace Step 3!
6. Take photos and upload them to iNaturalist! The project will update in live time as observation are submitted the day of the event, so check in regularly to track our progress.

Including a photograph (or audio recording) with your iNaturalist observation is key. Without it, the observation will not become "research grade" and eligible for use in many scientific studies!

Here are some quick tips to help improve your photographs so that you and other iNaturalist users can better identify the organisms you find:

1. Get closer. The more of your subject that fills the frame, the better detail your picture will have. Use macro lenses or shooting modes (often signified by a small flower icon on digital cameras) for small subjects, get close to a plant or fungi, or zoom in on wildlife. Make sure to use common sense when deciding whether or not to approach an animal. If you have any doubts, don’t approach it.
2. Take multiple photos. Take more than one photo to capture different views and parts of your subject. Sometimes small details necessary for making an identification are not visible from a single angle. Try taking pictures of leaves, bark, stems, flowers, and other plant parts, or photograph an animal or fungi from multiple angles, such as above, to the side, and underneath.
3. Take photos that are in focus. While blurry photos can be a fun challenge for making an identification, it is far easier to identify an organism when the photos are in focus and show the organism in crisp detail.
4. Add something for scale. In many cases, providing a size reference will help confirm an identification. Size references are especially useful for tracks, since many tracks can look similar in photos and it can be challenging to judge size based on the track alone. A size reference uses any object that most people know the approximate size of, such as a coin, glove, ruler, or hiking pole. You can also describe size in the comments section if necessary.

Thanks to the staff at Vermont Center for Ecostudies for putting together this more detailed article on improving photographs, accessible here: https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/vermont-atlas-of-life/journal/30529-tech-tip-tuesday-improving-photographs

You can also check out this short video on how to take better photographs for iNaturalist: https://vimeo.com/167341998

Need help identifying something you found? If you have submitted anything to iNaturalist, you probably noticed the smartphone app (and website!) has a built in tool that suggests an identification for the plant, animal, or fungi in your photo. Although not always correct, this ID tool is often the first option for identifying your observation. Here are some other tools you can use for making an identification.

Birds - All About Birds (https://www.allaboutbirds.org/news/)
Plants - GoBotany (https://gobotany.nativeplanttrust.org/full/)
Insects - BugGuide (https://bugguide.net/node/view/15740)

Books - Peterson Field Guides (https://www.hmhbooks.com/series/peterson-field-guides)

More links to resources can be found on Vermont Center for Ecostudies' site: http://val.vtecostudies.org/about/identification-resources/

And remember, even if you don't know what it is that you found, submit it anyways! Your iNaturalist community (>1 million users!) is eager to assist.

If you have a favorite go-to identification resource of your own, we want to hear about it! Share it on our Facebook event page: https://www.facebook.com/events/513004289600804/