How I Got Started as a Naturalist

When I was about 3 or 4 years old, I pretty much had my eyes glued to the ground when I was outside.  I was pretty good at pattern recognition so I knew when I found something out of the ordinary.  For example, in the days before Chem-lawn, my dad kept a meticulous half acre lot, but it was loaded with things like white clover and dandelion, mostly because the house was built on former cow pasture, so wild seeds were always nearby.  I remember spotting feathery leafy plants mixed into the grass at the edge of the driveway, which I would come to understand later in life that these were yarrow and wild carrot.  Similarly, after a winter of having a driveway sanded and shoveled, I would later find leftover quartz pebbles in the springtime, because I thought they were pretty.  This was the kind of child that needed to be taken to a Natural History museum immediately.  Parents, take note.

At the end of our street was a vacant lot that was designated as "open space".  It wasn't quite large enough to put a house on it, so they left it to go wild.  Us kids would ride our Big Wheels down to this lot and of course, we explored like crazy even though we never had a name for what we were doing.  I can still list the kinds of wildflowers that were growing like crazy in that field:

• oxeye daisy
• black-eyed susans
• goldenrod
• purple clover
• purple thistles
• cow vetch
• butter & eggs

... among many others.

Oxeye Dasies are not native to North America, but they are easy to grow.

It was in that field that I caught my first butterflies.  I think I had a glass jar full of them!  Regrettably, I learned the hard way that you needed to poke holes in the lid so that they could breathe, but that's another story altogether.  Hindsight tells me these were probably skippers of some sort.  They were dusty orange, and I tried to tell my mother they were all sleeping.

Not a Skipper, but probably a (Silver-Borderd) Fritillary

The back portion of our own lot, like most on that side of the street, were left wooded.  I didn't spend much time on tree identification, but I can tell you with certainty that we had several species of violets, ferns, and berries in that bit of space.  If we were ever issued the command to "go play outside," this was never a problem for me, at least, unless I didn't know how to identify poison ivy, which I couldn't.  After years of suffering, calamine lotion, and steroid shots, Cub Scouts fixed this permanently for me.  

Marsh Violets, similar to ones found behind our old house.

But until that point, the other mishap story that I love to tell is that my mother eventually learned that she always needed to check my pockets before doing the laundry.  I remember one time at a family gathering, she gave a list of what she'd find... pebbles, rocks, even live caterpillars!  I think the bits of broken crayons that made it to the dryer (and consequently, all over everyone else's clothes) fixed this for both of us.

So what's the takeaway here?  I think anyone, at any age, can cultivate curiosity, and with that, the observations will come.  Skills like plant identification need not be intimidating, as they are a natural consequence of traipsing through the woods and meadows.  You don't need epic wilderness to get started.  All you need is your own back yard or nearby park, and your eyes and ears.  How this plays out for you is your story.  Don't be afraid of mistakes.  Lord knows, I wasn't.

I eventually got my wish to visit a natural history museum.  More on that later.

I later went on to a successful career in Scouting.  Much, much more on that later.

And as an adult, I check my pockets more carefully now before doing the wash.