Here's how to add observations

Using iNaturalist is easy, but here is a little extra help:

1. From the project page, click Add Observations to this Project. You will be taken to a screen to sign into iNaturalist.

If you are signing into iNaturalist for the first time, use one of the following options:

  • Create a username and password. You will receive an email with a link that you must use to activate the account.
  • Sign in with your Google, Yahoo, Flickr, Facebook, or Twitter account. If you do this, the next screen will ask you to click to approve or allow linking to that account.  With Facebook and Twitter, look carefully at the permissions you’d be giving.

Either during this initial sign-in process or later in your Profile, indicate your time zone (Pacific). You can approve sharing the data you enter here, with a general Creative Commons license, or set details of re-use and credit in the next step.

Once you sign in, click on Dashboard, then Profile, and then Edit Account Settings and Profile.  Here you can set options including information about yourself, the time zone, details of how you are willing to share data and photos, and links to accounts such as Google and Flickr so you can sign in with them in future. When you are done, return to the project page.

2. Joining the project: Once you are signed in at the project page, click Add Observations to this Project. At the upper left, read the project terms. If you agree, click the box to join the project. 

3. Adding observations: Once you have signed in and joined the project, click Add Observations to this Project.  Here is a good way to fill in the screen that comes up:

a. If you have a photo, upload it first (Add photos, right side of screen).  Click on Source to choose to upload from your hard drive or from Facebook, Picasa, or Flickr.  With online photo-sharing services such as Picasa or Flickr, if you "sync," iNaturalist will try to import some of the data for other fields: time, date, species name from a tag, and georeference. See those programs for info on how to do this. 

  • An iNaturalist video that shows uploading from Flickr accounts as an example is here
  • An iNaturalist video that shows uploading photos in a batch, using Facebook as an example and with lots more information on using iNaturalist with Facebook, is here

b. In Where were you, center of screen, enter "Albany Hill, CA” and click Search. This will center on the project map. Zoom in close, and then even closer by clicking "map" or "satellite" view.  

c. Within the project area, click as near as you can to where you saw plant or animal. This creates a marker.

d. In What did you see, left side of screen, enter the common or Latin name if you know it. Don’t worry too much about getting the name right, or knowing the name at all. The iNaturalist community will help, especially if you click the ID please box.

e. In When did you see it, enter the observation date as text (e.g. July 10, 2011), as yyyy-mm-dd, or using the clickable calendar.

f. In Description, besides information needed to identify the plant or animal, please tell us about what it was doing.  

  • For an animal, it’s helpful to know age or sex (fawn? six-point buck?), time of day, what it was doing (resting? feeding? hunting? in what surroundings or vegetation?) Birds could be alone or in flocks, flycatching, eating seeds, bulding nests, etc. Butterflies could seem interested in mud or flowers (what kind?) or, for Monarchs, just hanging from trees -- and if so, which trees they were using, in relation to other landmarks. 
  • For a plant, was it blooming? Setting seed? Leafless? Alone, one of several scattered, or in a big clump? Did it seem healthy or struggling? Young, mature, or old and about to die?

g. Click Save observation or Save and add another.

That's all there is to it! Optionally, if you have no photo and just want to report another observation of something already reported, you can do it as a comment on the existing observation.

If you use an iPhone, get the free iNaturalist app here See a video on how to use it here.