Since joining iNaturalist, back in fall of 2017, I have made better efforts to document everything. I am first and foremost a birder. However, in the past few years I have branched out to many other taxa. With most of the observations of these "other" taxa, I needed/need photos for an ID. With birds, I usually just go out and look/listen, leaving my camera behind more often than not. I am comfortable enough with my ID skills of local birds that I didn't often get documentation. I would only try photographing/recording individuals if they were rare or if they provided a really good look/listen. Now, I take my camera every time I go out. If I leave something behind, it's my binoculars and not my camera.

Like most birders, I use eBird predominantly for my bird records. When eBird made it easier to add media to their checklists, I began taking more photos, but still mainly used the camera for rarity documentation. However, I started adding photos of common birds that I managed to photograph well on an outing. When I first joined iNat, I figured that I would use it for all of my non-bird sightings. And, at first, that was exactly what I did. I slowly appreciated what iNat provided for me: a holistic way to document my outings. With iNat, I could catalog any biotic feature of my outing that I could get a photo of in the eco-system that I had visited. When I go out, I may photograph what is in bloom and what insects are flying, in addition to the birds that I may have originally been chasing. I can submit what I know at species level and potentially learn something new by submitting the unknowns. My photo count from outings went from mid-50s to a couple hundred when I adopted this technique. Now that it is essentially winter, birds are what I observe almost exclusively. So, my plan is to spend this winter building up my bird observations on iNat through my different outings, Christmas Bird Counts, and hours of feeder-watching (see the following observation for my newest yard bird) https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/18605426

I implemented my new iNat-birding technique yesterday (12/3) while visiting one of my favorite winter birding patches, Lake Saracen (formerly Lake Pine Bluff) in Pine Bluff, AR. I've formed iNat places for many of my patches, but had neglected to do so for this one. So, I set out to begin populating my future iNat patch-place with birds from my first "winter" outing of the 2018-19 season. Kind of a side goal with this visit was to see what percentage of birds I could take identifiable photos of, using very limited playback. In the end, I observed 40 species and took 22 photos of birds that could be, and have been, identified by the iNat community. I used playback only for rails that were either not present or unwilling to respond. I had photos of two species that were, in my opinion, unidentifiable and I did not post them (one of a Fish Crow that was ID-ed by voice and another of a Horned Grebe that I could see well but did not photograph well enough). Instead of giving a report of each bird that I photographed and each bird that I only observed, I'm going to group my sightings by region or habitat.

I started the trek on the southeast corner of the lake, where the walking trail begins. This part of the lake is very shallow, with a heavily vegetated island. The adjacent land was a fragment of semi-wet bottomland hardwood. Here's what I saw in this section
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/18816238
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/18816239
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/18816240
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/18816253
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/18816254
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/18816257
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/18816256
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/18816255
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/18816258

The second half of the portion of trail that I walked featured a deeper part of the lake, along with a reed bed near the shore. The adjacent land ranged from a swampy area to baseball fields.
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/18816250
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/18816251
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/18816247
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/18816248
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/18816246
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/18816245
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/18816244
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/18816243
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/18816242
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/18816241

Before leaving, I checked the around the various fishing piers and the enormous landing and found a Great Egret and a few Ruddy Ducks
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/18816261
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/18816260

I hope to utilize this strategy more and more. Here is a link to the eBird checklist that I submitted for this outing.
https://ebird.org/view/checklist/S50399222

Posted on December 4, 2018 10:36 PM by moondevg