Using an Apple iOS 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 Apple iOS phone:

  1. In the iNaturalist (Classic) App, tap the green “Projects” button in the bottom right of the screen
  2. In the Projects screen, tap the magnifying glass in the top right corner of the screen.
  3. In the “Search for projects named …” box at the top of the screen type Somerset Big Bat Count
  4. Tap Somerset Big Bat Count when it appears below the search box
  5. 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.
  6. Check this button has changed to “Leave”, this confirms you have successfully joined the group. Sorry, it is a very small button.
  7. To return home tap the top right back arrow once, then tap Explore at the bottom of the screen to see local records.

Recording bat records to iNaturalist during a Group count

Below is how to add an observation of a bat in the iNaturalist Classic app on an Apple iOS 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, tap the grey “Observe” button at the bottom middle of the screen.
  3. Select “No Media” from the menu that slides up from the bottom of the screen.
  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 that appears 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, or you are on a past version of iOS, 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. On return to the “Details” screen, there is no need to select the Project as your observations go into all the projects you have joined if they meet the criteria of the project.
  7. Tap the green rectangular “share” button at the bottom of the screen to submit the new observation to the iNaturalist database