What is an observation?

Observations are the basic units of iNaturalist. An observation records an encounter with an individual organism, or recent evidence of an organism, at a particular time and location. This includes encounters with signs of organisms like tracks, nests, scat, or things that just died. iNaturalist provides a place to add this information along with associated text, photos, and tags.

You should make separate observations for each separate organism you encounter. But if you take multiple pictures of the same organism during the same encounter, please combine them into a single observation. If you revisit that organism later, such as returning to a plant on a later date when it's in bloom, you should make a separate observation because it was observed on a different date.