Amateur naturalism, part four


I didn’t initially intend it this way, but we’ve been working through a scale of increasing difficulty and effort in this series, starting with insects, then working through birds, read more

Amateur naturalism, part three


Our next topic in the series is reptiles – you can also refer back to the posts about insects and birds if you like.

Reptiles (and amphibians, which I’ll also refer to here but will use the same term for each just for convenience) are perhaps the most misunderstood of animal classes, which is unfortunate because they’re actually pretty cool. They become more prevalent with warmer read more

Amateur naturalism, part two


This follows on from the series I began here – the topic of this installment is birds. There are some basic observational guidelines contained in that first post, so I’d recommend skimming that one too, even if bugs aren’t your thing (sounds strange, I know, but the possibility exists.)

Now, bird-watching is a common activity, and it’s easy to find plenty of sources that tell read more

Amateur naturalism, part one


In an earlier post, I mentioned encouraging kids to keep a journal about their insect observations, and at that point (the first draft of this is being typed immediately after I published that post) decided to create a series dedicated to this subject. So, welcome to the first of read more