Treasure Hunt
For this last assignment, I began on campus near our classroom, finding the California Bay plant. I realized that I could probably find all of my observations on campus, but decided to make a trip up to one of my favorite hiking spots, Tilden, to complete the rest of the assignment. I went on inaturalist to see what last year's class had found in Tilden. I looked at the different observations, and decided to focus on the six that I felt the most comfortable identifying: the Woodland Strawberry, the California Poppy, Ivy, Ferns, Lupines, and Spurges. These are all plants that I had seen before and felt that I knew well. In addition, I knew that I would be able to easily relocate them in Tilden. I went on my hike, and took about 100+ observations, making sure to find the 6 that I was looking for. I found unlimited amounts of spurges and lupines. The california poppy took longer to find, but there were a few dispersed here and there along the trail. Surprisingly, I found that the ferns, ivy, and woodland strawberry were the hardest to relocate, but weren't impossible to find. After I was finished, I went onto inaturalist and compared my findings to the observations from the year before. Not only did I take almost matching photos of these 7 plants, but many of my observations of other species that i did not intend to relocate matched other observations from the class before. This is not surprising or shocking at all, since people in Tilden are going to take photos of what they see, and if I saw what others saw, of course we would have similar observations! Regardless, this made me feel good in a weird way, as if I was doing something right. Maybe it made me feel like I was observing the "right" stuff. I am not sure why I liked this, but it definitely gave me a strong sense of this inner inaturalist community in a funny way. even though I was physically alone while taking these observations, it made me feel as if I wasn't alone, seeing that others saw what I saw. I believe that this sense of community that inaturalist gives is one of the reasons that the website is successful and will continue to grow.
Extra Credit: http://www.inaturalist.org/calendar/sgoldthang/2014/5/9
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