I've delayed long enough -- let's talk about the City Nature Challenge!
It's a global citizen science competition between cities, vying to observe the most species in one weekend. Observations are made via the #iNaturalist app or website.
It starts this weekend, April 26-29, 2024. You have until May 5th to upload all of your observations and try to get them identified.
If your city or region is participating, that's pretty much all you have to do!
I recommend on just getting outside this weekend and taking as many photos you can of all the wild organisms you can -- plants, birds, lizards, bugs, whatever -- as long as it's truly wild (not captive or cultivated by humans).
Then you've got a week to upload the photos to #iNaturalist, which should give you plenty of time.
In general, the website (inaturalist.org) has a lot more features than the phone apps (especially on iOS). It's also easier to see photos of the suggestions that iNat's Computer Vision recommends based on your photo. So I would recommend uploading through there if possible.
The app can still be great, especially if you got some nice, clear, photos. But the workflow is just a little less streamlined, and upload speeds seems slower on the app compared to the website, even on the same connection
I'm working on a blog post for more detailed photography recommendations, broken down by the type organism, but in general try to get 3-4 photos from different angles.
You can also get sound recordings and add those for observations, but it's harder to get identifications on those.
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