An iNaturalist milestone: 500,000 observations!

In today’s post, Algonquin Provincial Park‘s Assistant Superintendent David LeGros helps us celebrate a big milestone for community scientists around the province!

For over five years now, Ontario Parks has been encouraging park visitors to submit their observations of nature — everything from plants, animals, and fungi — to our community science project in iNaturalist.

Over the Thanksgiving weekend, we surpassed 500,000 observations of 10,325 species by 11,688 observers — a fantastic feat!

Our visitors really like submitting observations.

I tip my Tilley hat to you all.

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The best apps for smartphone photography

Today’s post comes from Marketing and Communications summer student Mitch Jackson. 

Smartphone cameras keep getting better and better. No longer do park enthusiasts have to drag clunky DSLR cameras through the wilderness. Taking your smartphone with you will free up room for snacks, sunscreen, a lunch, a water bottle…did we mention more room for snacks?

We’ve seen that smartphones can already act as a field guide and support citizen science. Along with that, many phones also have incredible photo capabilities. Gone are the days of blurry, low-res phone photos. High-quality nature photography can happen right on your mobile device, without the burden of a camera strap.

Add some sparkle to your snapshots with the help of these apps:

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