Developing Naturalist Skills

I was thinking of starting this thread awhile back, and the thread on mushrooms reminded me.

There is obviously a great deal of knowledge here about the eastern forests and beyond. Almost all hikers know a few things, even if they have just picked stuff up by osmosis. I imagine most everyone knows a hemlock from a white pine. So, I'm not interested in hearing about that. I am interested in hearing from those of you who are actively pursuing learning more about any and all of the following:

-trees/forest types -geology/natural history
-shrubs/ferns/understory plants -edible and/or medicinal plants
-wildflowers -mushrooms
-birds -tracking
-mammals -weather
-alpine flora -backcountry aquatic fauna/flora

I'll start. As soon as I got "serious" about hiking, learning more about what's around me out there became important. It's not the only thing about hiking that interests me by any means, but it is high on the list. My approach, if one can call it that, has so far consisted of studying field guides, asking questions of knowledgable people I hike with, occasionally attending a lecture, and most important, trying to observe stuff when I'm out there.

I suppose I have a short attention span, and thus find it hard to focus on any one topic. Tree identification has probably been the one area I have found it easiest to focus on, but I have basically tried to learn a little bit about everything, and thus have not learned a lot about anything. I feel like while it's good to master one area, the forests are so complex that it is also important to understand all the interactions going on between flora, fauna, habitat, climate, season, etc.

So, some specific questions for the amateur naturalists out there:

-Have you ever done any formal study? A class or something? Anyone actually hold or pursuing a degree in forest ecology or a related field?

-Favorite field guides or other resources?

-Major areas of interest? Do you like to focus on one or two areas, or learn about everything? If it's the later, how do you balance it out?

-Practical approaches in the field? I don't expect people to share their secret places here. If you know where there's a huge heron nesting area or something, please don't post it on the internet, obviously. I'm just curious about what people generally do when they're out there and maybe the types of places they visit.

-Anybody have a "guru"? Either someone they've actually studied or hiked with, or even just read a great deal of thier writing?

Again, no need to post here if you only have a casual interest. I also don't need to hear from anyone who knows everything and feels like they always did know everything. I'm looking for responses from those who are actively pursuing knowledge, who see themselves as students. I'd like to see how others learn.

Matt

mcorsar said:

-Anybody have a "guru"? Either someone they've actually studied or hiked with, or even just read a great deal of thier writing?

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Matt, I guess you know what's coming here, but:

Dr. Kudish!

Let us know if you want to tag along sometime with 'us' or him.

Isn't Dr. Kudish a professor at Oneonta? There perhaps are some continuring education courses you could possibly take at a college/school that offers a forestry program. I went to Syracuse U but in Syracuse there is also the SUNY school for ESF (Environmental Science and Forestry)... but something similar closer to where you are might be interesting...

Of course, you can always read all of the books and essays from John Burroughs.

There was/is a very interesting thing on PBS that they play on occasion. In fact it was on a few weeks ago about the Harriman exploration of Alaska where Burroughs, and Jon Muir accompany Harriman (a wealthy Railroad tycoon) to SE alaska and what is now Glacier Bay (Muir has a glacier there named after him). Harriman I believe has connections to Harriman State Park and also I think another state park in Idaho or something like that...

Anyway, the PBS program is very interesting if you can catch it. You wont learn anything on naturalism but it's a good program to watch and it's about Alaska, so I'm a sucker for all things Alaska...

Jay

mcorsar said:

-Have you ever done any formal study? A class or something? Anyone actually hold or pursuing a degree in forest ecology or a related field?

-Favorite field guides or other resources?

-Major areas of interest? Do you like to focus on one or two areas, or learn about everything? If it's the later, how do you balance it out?

Matt

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Great Thread Matt! I look forward to the answers myself. I am very much an amateur naturalist, but it's always been a solid passion of mine.

I have no formal study, and although there was a time I wanted to be a botanist, the lure of foreign languages and countries seriously skewed my major away from that. I have a few sources to thank for my initial training, along with a healthy thirst for the knowledge they doled out.
1: Boy Scout Camp. The experience on the whole makes me shudder now, but back in my early teens I would take the survival/frontiersman courses they offered, which taught edible/medicinal plants, tracking, general tree and plant identification, orienteering, and other survival skills. I retained a surprising amount of this knowledge.
2: Maine Conservation Camp. Nearly the same as above, with a heavier concentration on identification/medicinal/edible aspect.
3. Maine Envirothon. This wasn't so much a source of knowledge as a place to show off and confirm knowledge. It's run by wardens and I always learned something, mostly about soil profiles.
4. Family. My late grandfather was an avid hunter and former Maine guide back in the 40's/50's. He also worked for the BSP service for years. He fully rounded out my knowledge and respect for animals as well as a religious sense of observation when in the woods.

Nowadays, and have been for about 10 years, I am entirely self-taught. I have no favorite field guides, but in general peterson's are pretty solid. I use the internet as well as my grandfather's archaic guides to bolster my knowledge in something new. I try not to specialize, as my passion for one field dwindles and kindles in another, only to switch back at some point.

I'm trying to learn about things I didn't have massive exposure to as a kid, such as mushrooms, weather (still mostly a 'let the cards fall as they may' type of guy), ornithology, alpine ecology, etc, while maintaining my old knowledge by passing it on to others. I certainly don't like to specialize because there's too much out there to learn!

Kyle

Great thread topic.

Jay H said:

Isn't Dr. Kudish a professor at Oneonta?

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Dr. Michael Kudish is a retired forestry professor from Paul Smiths College in the Adirondacks. He now lives in the Dry Brook valley year round giving him more time now to study the Catskills, which has always been the subject of the bulk of his studies.

There is probably no better written source on the natural history of the Catskills than his book The Catskill Forest: A History. And as Tom indicates he is quite willing to take interested hikers with him on his field trips. His book is an excellent source on the wide variety of factors that have affected the natural history of the Catskills. It discusses geology, human settlement, agriculture, and industries that have existed in the Catskills. Whenever I see something that is new to me while I am hiking, his book is the first place I look for an explanation. Most of the time some info is in there.

I consider a bit of geology to be essential in understanding the soil, what types of plants can grow in an area, and on the formation of wetlands. A worthwhile overview book is Written In Stone, A Geological History of the Northeastern United States, by Chet and Maureen Raymo.

I dabble in all the areas you mention, Matt. I am mostly self taught from books. I did take many science courses while in college, but that was a very long time ago.

Matt, after doing a few hikes in the Adk's I picked up Ketcheledge's fantastic little book on trees of the Highpeaks Region. Spending so much time hiking it makes sense to be able to interpret the forest around you and his book does much, much more than identify trees.
(Trees don't fly or run away so you can get a good long look at them. Also, there's an ample supply of them in the NE)

It's one thing to ID a plant or a bird but it's a whole other ballgame to understand the ecological web of interaction between the bird and the plant and the habitat they occupy.

In that respect a great field guide is the Peterson guide to Eastern Forests. It integrates "everything" into a study of forest ecology: bugs, creepy crawleys, soil, mosses, flowering annuals, forest succession, birds - the works.

After trees and forests what better subject than meteorology? This is one science I find pretty tough but the Audobon Field Guide to weather is a real gem. Now at least when I see cirrus clouds I understand why they are forming and what it means. I still rely on Wunderground but now I can grasp the meaning of the various maps and radar images that are linked to the main page.

Anyway, this is a very interesting thread topic!

the science of nature

I also consider myself somewhat of an amateur naturalist with interests in birding, geology, New England archeology, and wildflowers. I even teach environmental science to Boy Scouts. But often I find my interest fading when I get into real scientific detail. This weekend was a case in point, when on my way to the Holyoke range for a quick hike I stopped to see a Northern Wheatear. It is a northern bird that ended up here due to a bad internal compass. I had read some about it life and its amazing migration. Bottom line, I love the wonder and esthetics of nature and spend more time appreciating these things than I do learning about them. I often thought that somewhere out there, there is the greatest naturalist that ever lived but he was too busy observing and enjoying nature to sit down and share it with us. I guess that is what makes people like Rachel Carson, Muir, Thoreau, etc so great.

I have always had an interest in this stuff. I was a staff member at a scout camp and did alot then. My main interests have been birds and plants.

My interest in plants was stregthened by my studies in medicinal herbs and homeopathy. I majored in History of Science and Medicine in college. I read alot about the Thompsonians and ecletics and thier use of botanicals. Alot of these plants made it into the Homeopathic pharmacopia of the US. (its and FDA thing) These different medical sects that based themselves on botanicals follow the "Docterine of Signatures." That is the appearance and nature of the plant will reflect its medical use. ie Yellow sap in Greater Celedine indicates a hepatic action etc. Seems flaky at first.

I have always had an interest in birds. I feel I am constantly a student. With the change of seasons I feel the need to reaquaint myself with the different species and where I could find them. For guide books? I have alot and still need more.

One problem I have is deciding that I will hike and not explore. Birding or looking for plants, insects etc takes hours.

I have been on herb walks with prominent herbalists. I belong to a bird club that is celebrating its 100th anaversary. As a kid I took advantage of nature walks offered through Fairbanks Museum. Alot has been self study.

This time of year I think of mushrooms. I can't consider myself a beginer in this field. I knew someone who had a big impact on me as a teenager. We had talked about going out in the fall to gather mushrooms. However, he past away the winter before.

Tom Wessels' books ("Reading the Forested Landscape" and "The Granite Landscape") are fairly interesting.

I take the "whatsit" approach -- I just keep my eyes out for something distinctive & unfamiliar, & take pictures or bring a field guide with me (usually I take my camera & leave the field guide at home which is sometimes a grave mistake, especially if you take pictures of part A of a plant & it's part B that is used to confirm ID, e.g. undersides of leaves, or basal leaves).

key ID features for plants (Newcomb's Guide is good for wildflowers, I like Peterson's guide for Trees and Shrubs):
* alternate/opposite/whorled
alternate = all stem junctions are 3's; sub-stems alternate back and forth on either side of the main stem
opposite = two stems/leaves/branches begin at the same point on opposite sides of the main stem, forming junctions of 4's.
whorled = like opposite but there are more than 2 sub-stems coming together

* flower numbers (e.g. trilliums have 3 petals, dogwoods have 4, wild roses have 5, starflower usually has 7, dandelions & other composites appear to have many)
* whether leaves have teeth along the edge or are smooth ("entire")

You can narrow down choices a lot through these 3 (which are what Newcomb's uses, I didn't make that up)

* where the flowers are (terminal flowers are at the end of the stem; axillary flowers emerge lower down from joints between leaf/stem)
* other distinctive traits (e.g. mints have square stems)

for me learning plants is sort of like doing a picture puzzle, very slowly at first with isolated facts, but easier later once you start to get the big picture (lots of things are related & they just look similar after you see enough of them) & are just filling in details.

I dunno, do what you enjoy & make time to stop if something sticks out at you. I went to Odiorne State Park a few wks ago, with little/no experience with seaside plants, & spent about 3 hrs walking less than a mile along the shore. I'm not much better now but I learned a lot.

As for finding out good places to go: part of it is detective work, looking through books or the internet, and part of it is recognizing when you're somewhere interesting. When you see lots of stuff that is either new or atypical, that's a good place. In NH, that could be lots of sugar maples, or a river floodplain, or a rocky hill with exposed ledges, or an alpine terrace, or an abandoned lot. Water usually plays a big part & you will generally find more interesting things where water flows either permanently or seasonally (floods / rainy season) or temporarily (rock crevices when it rains).

just get out & start looking...


edit: Accept Ambiguity. you'll never be able to ID everything, I have hundreds of photos I can't figure out what they are... if you can't figure out something, skip it & move on to something else.

JackH said:

I also consider myself somewhat of an amateur naturalist with interests in birding, geology, New England archeology, and wildflowers. I even teach environmental science to Boy Scouts. But often I find my interest fading when I get into real scientific detail. This weekend was a case in point, when on my way to the Holyoke range for a quick hike I stopped to see a Northern Wheatear. It is a northern bird that ended up here due to a bad internal compass. I had read some about it life and its amazing migration. Bottom line, I love the wonder and esthetics of nature and spend more time appreciating these things than I do learning about them. I often thought that somewhere out there, there is the greatest naturalist that ever lived but he was too busy observing and enjoying nature to sit down and share it with us. I guess that is what makes people like Rachel Carson, Muir, Thoreau, etc so great.

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I have also heard of the Wheatear through the Rare Bird Alert, also the the Reef Heron seen in NH and Kittery ME these past few weeks.

This lost thrush in CT reminds me of last winter. We had a Townsend's solitaire in Sleeping Giant. A lot of people walked up the Tower Road, great detail of its location had been provided on the internet, they spotted the bird looked at it for a minute, long enough to check it off thier list and left. They did not watch it feed in the junipers, they did not wait to hear it sing. (it has a very bluebird like quality) Sure they show up in the east every couple of years.

I know, Hike your own hike...the corilary could be watch your own bird.

Thanks for all the replies. I do have "Written In Stone" and in fact brought it to work to today to read at lunch. Probably the best written resource on Northeast geology I've come across so far. I also own the terrific little Ketchledge tree guide Neil mentions-I like the key in that one, plus it's really small. What's not small is the Kudish Catskill Forest book, which I once had out of the library. In fact, I found it almost overwhelming. I will eventually buy that one, and plan to use it as Mark does. I would very much like to get out in the field w/ Dr. Kudish some time-Tom, please do call or shoot me an e-mail sometime when you two are planning on heading out w/ him. I pretty much will go anytime I don't already have other plans.

Neil, I don't have the Peterson Eastern Forests guide, but I have an older Audubon Society Eastern Forests guide my dad gave me, and it's one of my favorites. I come back to it time and again. I may just get the Peterson as well some time. I agree wholeheartedly that it is important to understand how it all fits together. I think this one is the most important guide on my shelf.

In addition to the books mentioned above, I have about half a dozen Peterson Guides. I also like these little thin fold-out guides called Pocket Naturalist, the publisher is Waterford Press. The lighter/smaller something is, the more likely I am to actually bring it out in the field. On photos vs. drawings-I know Peterson liked to do his drawings because he felt that it was in a way easier to bring out the classic characteristics of a species in a drawing based on viewings of many specimens, rather than just with a single photo of one specimen. Photos are still nice though. One of the coolest books I've recently picked up is called "Adirondack Almanac", by Tom Kalinowski. The subtitle is "A Guide to the Natural Year", which pretty much explains the book. Great stuff. While specific to the ADKs, this book would be useful for much of the Northeast.

Nice comments from Jack, Puck and Arghman regarding taking one's time, remembering to appreciate, etc. I absolutely feel that learning this stuff adds to my enjoyment of hiking quite a lot, but there are times when I just want to hike w/o thinking too much-probably most of the time actually. I think there is a process that goes from learning to ID a species to simply recognizing it. So I find that with easy, obvious stuff, like say the trees in the boreal forest, there is recognition, along w/ simple appreciation for their beauty, w/o thinking about the "science."

Now to reach that level of recognition with every species of flora and fauna in all the different types of eastern forests would probably take a lifetime. I don't think that's attainable, necessary or even really desirable. I definitely can accept ambiguity, as Arghman put it. I better be able to, since there's a whole lot of stuff I don't have a clue about!

Matt

Good thread you started, mcorsar. It brought back lots of memories of great "nature hikes" I was privileged to be on--like listening to Orra Phelps talk about the wildflowers at her home in Wilton. She was a gem.

One suggestion I have is to visit one of the environmental education centers in New York. There are two in the Adirondacks: Paul Smiths VIC and Newcomb VIC. There is also Five Rivers near Albany (run by the DEC). These places have staff and volunteers with years of experience in various areas of nature study. There is usually a collection of books you can use and they will give you good ideas on books to acquire.

It is always fun to hike and explore with someone who has a unique interest that they have developed over the years. Some of the ADK chapters sponsor nature hikes led by knowledgeable folks. Ruth Schottman sometimes leads hikes and she has written an interesting book, "Trailside Notes: A Naturalist Companion to Adirondack Plants."

Everyone has their favorite field guides. I prefer the Peterson series, partly because I like having the pictures on the same page as the text (unlike the Audubon series). If you are interested in birds, I was recently given a very nice book, Birds of New York State, by Budliger and Kennedy. It has great illustrations and the text has additional information beyond the basics of identification and habitat.

One final suggestion--keep a notebook or journal with lists of plants and animals that you find and identify on your hikes.

Pat T

I loved everyone's comments. I sense that there are more and more of us realizing that this pastime adds infinitely to the enjoyment of nature and hiking, even if it does slow us down.

As for me, I've been mostly interested in wildflowers, but everything distracts me, especially fungi, as well as birds, moths, butterflies, trees, lichens. Just a smattering of knowledge can really wake up your senses.

Buying a digital camera really got me going, and I've begun taking pictures of just about any plant that catches my eye, that I would overlook before. A weedlot is a wondrous thing. There's nothing like an evening spent with the photos, the books, and the internet.

What I've learned recently is, depending on the genus, some minute detail makes all the difference in identifying the species, so when you take your pictures, make sure you get a clear shot of all the leaves from the ground up, the bracts (the section from which the flower springs), whether the stems/leaves are hairy, etc.

There are good field guides, better field guides and lots of personal preferences.

This is hands down my favorite field guide. It's so much more than just animal tracks.

I also really like the Stokes field guides, they read more like a book and have good stories to go along with each thing.

I love to stop and look at stuff in the woods. In my daypack I usally carry small binoculars and a camera. If I don't have a field guide with me I take a photo of whatever it is and investigate further when I get home. Being curious is fun, it makes you feel like a little kid. Look, POOP!

Being curious also makes the woods SOOOO much more interesting.

Lichens! Good call, Audrey. These are some of my favorite organisms in the woods and are responsible for that cruicial initial step in succession toward the forests we all love. Some are edible as well. Look up rock tripe. mmm...

I also agree with sleeping bear about the peterson's guide to animal tracking and behavior. Downright amazing read.

I love all the ideas and sentiments in this thread. Peakbagging is fun, but it's really about seeing the forest for the trees (and everything smaller as well).

audrey said:

A weedlot is a wondrous thing.

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When Orra "Doc" Phelps (read the book about her!) retired from being the first NYS Ranger Naturalist, she would hold classes in a weedlot near her house in Wilton NY where the likes of Ketch, Dr. Nancy Slack, and others would spend the weekend identifying all the indigenous wildflowers. Orra's trips to Alaska in the 30's and 40's were instrumental in confirming the artic alpine connection to the Northeast alpine summit zones and became the genesis for the summit stewardship programs.

I admire many more species than I actually track down and get the names of, but all in good time.

While thinking of this thread I recalled something I had read a year or so ago in Gonzales book "Deep Survival." A skill that is discussed (and taught to children) is to look at the plants, lichens, nests etc. Have a diaolg with your self...This is the rock werre the red squirrel ripped open a cone....this is the beech tree with the bear claw marks....this is where I saw the red breasted nuthatch. this process will create a mental map for you. The process will do two things: an awareness of your location and a way to enjoy your experience to the max.