drive-by naturalists

Pretty rad. You can see some similar behavior on the animated map we just posted about at http://inaturalist.tumblr.com/post/133346901714 (interactive version at http://inaturalist.github.io/animated-map.html).

Wow, really cool! Looks like things first started to really take off mid-2011. In global view, people's occasional Antarctic/sub-Antarctic islands expeditions are really noticeable.

Persistent US hotspots:

--basically all of coastal California from SF to SD
--all of Vermont
--Seattle, WA
--Cleveland, OH (how about that!)
--two big spots in eastern Texas that I assume are greglasley and sambiology

Yeah, the hot spot thing is neat because to me it says that we could have that kind of coverage everywhere people have Internet access, as long as we find a few of the right people and organizations in each area. I also notice that an area with a few really involved people persists longer than one isolated excited person... due to the community I think, or just because people recruit others.

I don't even remember how I found the site. Did you do a bunch of outreach in 2011? I think @kpmcfarland actually found it before me, but just didn't start posting as much stuff as fast.

That was around the time I started working with @loarie. He did a bunch of outreach, mostly through partnering with conservation groups on things like the Global Amphibian Bioblitz, and some of the spillover was reaching people who wrote blog posts or would eventually become critical local organizers like Kent. I really credit Scott with building this community and obliterating my naive "build it and they will come" mentality. Relentless, shameless promotion is critical.

Yeah, I heard about it in a blog or something in 2011. I had been very involved in eBird and other data collection projects and when I found iNat it fit into an idea that was churning in my head to collect as much data about Vermont biodiversity as possible in one place, both historic stuff in collections and notebooks, and ongoing into future. We already had done a bunch of wildlife atlases like breeding birds, butterflies, etc. This platform was a logical place to get all those cit sci to keep going ad hoc and wild. So, it has worked for us amazingly. A lot of people love it here in Vermont. Shameless promotion is wicked important! I do it for iNat and the Vermont Atlas of LIfe all the time! You guys have created a great platform and community!

I'm kind of doing the opposite at the moment. Not going anywhere but posting observations for the last ten to ? years (haven't gotten to my slides yet;-) The reason being to give a better focus on a single location - what changes, what is the same, etc. Of course this used to be pre-industrial men and women's lot. Nowadays its a luxury to spend a lifetime in one place (well, could be). So far I have posted many of my post negative film digital images , with a few exceptions. There is nothing like digital imaging compared to the bad old days of film. Still it's good to have film back up - just like I have with recorded music. Thank goodness I still have a vintage record player to play my hundreds of LPs;-)

I note Australian Harriers wherever I see them which is mostly around my home-town of Hokitika and more especially up at the Airport where I work. Nearly all my obs are non-photograph but I try to enter a photo from time to time just to prove I'm recording the species accurately. I visit friends up at Westport occasionally so watch this space for more obs Hokitika to Greymouth to Punakaiki to Wesport - especially around the Cape Foulwind area which is a favourite haunt of mine.

Awesome work being done here
As far as saguaros are concerned my daughter
And my great great grandfather who was a news paper editor
And self taught naturalist set in motion trying to find the boundaries of the saguaros
To see if it has changed since 1886-96 time frame and amazing it has
They don’t sneak in to New Mexico anymore via the gila river canyon
Thanks to farming and are no longer found in the tip of Nevada or the Mountains
Of the desert areas of California like they were at one time
I hope what I have done has helped someone out here

@Sea-kangaroo
I’m going off off his notes and old GLO and other surveys
That were done in the 1880-1916 time frame. I’ve been all over the southern
Tip of Nevada surveying lands and never seen any proof
There is a area north of bullhead city where in the canyons
You can find petrified saguaro wood in the silaca rich sands
Another area is the Big Sandy valley north of I-40 east of Kingman, Az
But none of this is around anymore..
the ones in the gila canyon of New Mexico were well documented
But seem to have disappeared with farming from the stafford, az area into NM

There are quite a few
I never made it to imperial county for observations

but I know they are there
I know quite a few from my memory
I’ve done work in Riverside and San Bernardino county’s
Just the eastern edge but historically there were more
Until OHV destroyed most of there desert areas

Sort of the opposite, but still part of the same idea: observations taken at a single location involving many species - and growing - all within a small area using alternative means of transport to auto/vehicles and thus incurring a small carbon footprint. I offer mine as an example, most observations taken within a mile or mile and a half transect easily accessed on foot? Hence, the observations would fence in a general area marking a man-made boundary instead of a geographical one? Course, the two overlap as well. Here is mine, although not all fall into the community, but I'm betting 95 percent plus do, with very little petrol expended.

https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?place_id=any&user_id=billarbon&verifiable=any

Perhaps a prize for the smallest carbon footprint? And largest;-)