Thinking More about Natural History

Last year I published an essay in The American Naturalist, seen here, about the role natural

plays, or should play, in ecological, evolutionary, and behavioral science. Writing the essay

brought to mind how much, or little, I indulge in natural history. The responsibilities of a

faculty member make it easy to procrastinate taking the hike or the kayak trip through

which I enjoy what my friends and I used to call “botanizing” or “herping” or “birding,”

depending upon which friends were along.

Walks along the Thames

When I was on sabbatical in Oxford last year I found myself doing much more

natural history on a day to day basis than I manage at home. In part this was because I was

not on a rigid schedule of classes and meetings. It was also because the city is rich in parks

and small-scale nature preserves. From my home I could walk 10-15 minutes either north

or south and find myself amidst second-growth woods, in pastures and fields, and

alongside ponds and creeks, all of which offered ample opportunity for natural history.

I tried to recapture this enjoyment during the holiday break by spending days at the

St Marks National Wildlife Refuge. I watched hooded mergansers turn themselves over and

dive into the water for food and spied upon herons and egrets as they skulked about

seeking the perfect vantage for catching fish. I watched a salt marsh water snake for almost

ten minutes as it moved underwater, apparently seeking either food or a more comfortable

place to rest. I used my hand net to snag butterflies to ensure that my on-the-fly

identification was at least close to correct and watched them move from flower to flower,

shrub to shrub (yes, even in December in north Florida there are plants in flower). I

remembered that I once did a project on foraging paths, which amounted to nothing other

than fun for me.

At one level, I was happy that I could do all of this without worrying about data I

was supposed to be collecting, whatever they might be. At the other, I realized that this

slow, languid watching of animals was exactly how I was drawn to ecology and evolution.

In fact, hours spent doing so provoked questions in my mind about the “why” of what I was

seeing. With time, I seemed to have built an intuitive feel for many animals with which I

hung around: where I would find them, what they would be doing, and how they reacted to

me and to one another.

I also remembered that when I taught a natural history lab course, a combination of

herpetology and ichthyology, the emphasis on our field trips was on identification. We

spent time hanging around in different habitats, and I usually talked about the vegetation

and physical features of the habitat, but most of our time was spent trying to catch things to

identify. I’d like to teach a field class that will involve sitting around and watching. It might

not look so great on an official syllabus - students will hang around a riverbank and be

quiet - but I bet everyone will learn a lot. I might just sign up for this course myself, do my

own independent study module. That would oblige me to just watch stuff a few hours a

week. Why didn’t I think of this before?

From Top Left to Bottom Right: Rainbow Snake (Farancai eryrogramma), Mechanitis polymnia, Ithomia pelluci, Various flowers along the Thames near Oxford