Using an Android Device on a Group Big Bat Count

Before the Big Bat Count night

Please join the “Somerset Big Bat Count” project in the iNaturalist App on your Android phone:

  1. In the iNaturalist App, tap the three-line icon (Hamburger) in the top left of the screen
  2. Select “Projects“
  3. In the Projects screen, tap the magnifying glass in the top right corner of the screen.
  4. In the “Search projects …” box at the top of the screen type Somerset Big Bat Count
  5. Tap “Somerset Big Bat Count” when it appears below the search box
  6. You should see a screen with bat records in the bottom half. Click the small grey “Join” button to the left just above the bat records.
  7. Check this button has changed to “Leave”, this confirms you have successfully joined the group. Sorry, it is a very small button.
  8. To return home tap the top right back arrow, then the three-line icon (Hamburger) in the top left of the screen, and Explore to see local records.

Recording bat records to iNaturalist during a Group count

Below is how to record the bat species in the iNaturalist app on an Android phone:

  1. Listen for the species name called out by the person with the EMT tablet. Lookup that species in the red column of the species laminate. Read across to the green columns to find the full species name, or iNat Code, to enter into iNaturalist
  2. In the iNaturalist App, either:
    • Click the green round + icon in the bottom right corner
    • Or tap the three-line icon (Hamburger) in the top left of the screen. Then select “New observation” at the bottom of the drop-down list,
  3. On the next screen that slides up from the bottom tap “No Media“
  4. Type the name of the bat name using the iNat code from the supplied species lookup table into the “What did you see?” box near the top of the screen.
  5. Look to see if the desired Bat species appears at the head of a list below.
    • If the desired Bat species (with photo) appears in the list, click it
    • OR If the desired Bat species does not appear. Then the phone may not have an internet connection, and the species lookup in iNaturalist will not work.
      • In this case please delete the short code and instead start typing the full species name in iNaturalist into the box manually.
      • When the desired Bat species (with photo) appears in the list below, click it
  6. Tap the big green “Tick – Select” button below the bat picture.
  7. On returning to the “Edit observation” screen, there is no need to select the Project as your observations go into all projects you have joined if they meet the criteria of the project.
  8. Tap the round green tick button at the bottom of the screen to submit the new observation to the iNaturalist database