bookofjoeiNaturalist
The iNaturalist API is an absolute gem. It doesn't require authentication for read-only operations and it has open CORS headers which means it's amazing for demos and tutorials.
My partner and I built this website with it a few years ago: https://www.owlsnearme.com/
(I realize this is a bit on-brand for me but I also use it to track pelicans https://tools.simonwillison.net/species-observation-map#%7B%... )
I use iNaturalist semi-regularly and was about to start using it for a rewilding project I'm involved in, so looked into that and some of the alternatives.
I really like how easy it is to use, the various views on the data (incl. geofenced projects and places), the fact you can export it all back out again, the volunteer and "AI" assist on IDing stuff etc.
But I guess the main other pro for me was that, in the UK at least, most of the data I've put into iNaturalist that's made Research Grade has also been imported into iRecord and NBNAtlas which wouldn't happen the other way round, so 3 for the price of 1. See
https://nbn.org.uk/inaturalistuk/inaturalistuk-and-its-place...
I know there's various grumblings about observation quality from iRecord users relating to iNaturalist records, but I'm assuming this is people just not following the published guidance???
