Ideas for combining photographs and Nature's Notebook observation?

[LoriAnne Barnett]

iNaturalist has been suggested as a repository for photographs.  In many cases this may be appropriate.  Some things to consider:

1) An iNaturalist observation is of a single individual (plant, bird, etc) at one place and time, but it may contain several photos.  If taken with a smartphone with GPS turned on, the photo will automatically be stamped with location and time.

2) A description (“notes”) can be added to the observation to record phenology notes or code to a phenology record. The notes can really be anything.  They can be added at the time of the observation, or later by editing the observation.

3) It’s fine to make another observation of the same organism a few days later. 

4) if iNaturalist is used in this way, please take photos where the organism  can be identified to species by someone else (i. e. not just a bud but a bud plus leaves, etc.)

5) There are ways to code the observation (by adding tags or putting them in a project) so that they can easily be retrieved as a group.

6) An advantage of iNaturalist is that the observations are easily accessible to anybody and you don’t have to provide space or permission. 

7) You don’t have to upload the observations in the field.  If you just take photos, you can add them to iNaturalist later through iNaturalist.org.

Hope that helps some people!  iNaturalist.org online, or iNaturalist as free app for mobile.

Janet Wright

Ocean Springs, Mississippi

[LoriAnne Barnett]

We pair our observation with our iNaturalist records when we take visual records of a species we monitor.

The iNaturalist database is searchable, taggable, and very useful as a complementary monitoring tool. 

The benefit is that it also serves the purpose of sharing data globally that may be of scientific relevance.

Cheers, - Claire

[LoriAnne Barnett]

Amanda,

 

Dan’s suggestion is what I currently use.

 

This is what I do. I have a Google Photo Album. I can share a link or share to individuals through their email. I have a standard list of items that they have to include in the information tab.

 

It’s fairly easy to upload pictures there and you get a bunch of space.

 

Leah

[LoriAnne Barnett]

Amanda,

 

Open a new shared Google account that everyone can upload their pictures to.

 

Dan Gallagher

[LoriAnne Barnett]

Hello everybody,

I'm looking for a way for my volunteers to submit photographs they take as they make Nature's Notebook observations. Does anyone currently have volunteers do this?

Right now, I have a few observers who will email me pictures when they think about it. But increasing participation with email photo submissions is problematic since I'm all ready running out of storage space with all the pictures I personally take as I observe. It's time for me to come up with a long term solution. 

Anyone have any suggestions? Is this something that could be done with iNaturalist? Something else? 

Feeling clueless,

Amanda Wanlass

Indiana Phenology