Photographic Nature Journaling: Part 1

Watercolor of a durian fruit by unknown Chinese artist (1819-1823). Public domain image.

Have you seen natural history drawings and artwork of plants and animals similar to this above? Scientists and everyday people in the past frequently kept field notebooks of what they have observed and carefully recorded in nature. Scientists in nature studies still keep field journals, but the practice has fallen out of use for the general populous. It still has a small following in the art and education communities.

I recently purchased Keeping a Nature Journal 2003 by Claire Walker Leslie and have been looking at Nature Journaling videos by John Muir Laws. I've rekindled my interest.

What is the purpose of Nature Journaling?

One definition of Nature Journaling is a diary of nature observations and the recording of one's thoughts and feelings about what they observe. Each person's Nature Journal will be different. Some will be more artistic. Others will include more prose or poetry. Some will be more scientific. Others will have more personal reflection. Think of the descriptive scientific journals of Lewis and Clark, or the social reflections of Henry David Thoreau.

John Muir Laws indicates that to him, Nature Journaling has four main goals: 1) To Notice something you would not have seen, 2) To Remember details you would have forgotten, 3) To stoke the fires of Curiosity and have a tool to explore, and 4) To fall more deeply in love with the [natural] world.

To accomplish these, the first step is to observe nature, to "see deeply and with intentional curiosity", then draw it, then reflect upon it. Laws says, "The goal of nature journaling is not to create a portfolio of pretty pictures but to develop a tool to help you see, wonder, and remember your experiences in nature. You can learn to do this. You do not need to be an artist or a naturalist. These are skills you will develop as you go."

The act of drawing forces one to slow down, really see the object, and then develop questions about what your are seeing, and learn about and enjoy nature.

Can Nature Journaling be done using photographs?

Photographs can certainly be incorporated into a nature journal. But, I wondered, Can a nature journal be recreated on a blog exclusively with photos rather than drawings?

The "slowing down" and taking time to observe is a key component of Nature Journaling. Thus, the immediacy of taking a photograph compared with making a field sketch could be seen as an argument against photography rather than drawing. Learning to draw is part of the process of learning to "see" nature. If one bounces from nature subject to subject--"Look!--there's some nature,"--click, click, click--there is no time to observe behaviors and to note "context and connections" in nature.

Many people fear that they need to be artists, and thus fear Nature Journaling. But this skill develops with practice. Having "poor" artistic skills is not the reason to use photography. Rather I enjoy bird photography, carry a large camera and binoculars into the field and would rather use these than sketch book and art supplies. I would be forced to carry one or the other,... and I know which one would win.

How to modify Nature Journaling for photography

So, how can I adapt photography to the nature journal and still slow down and observe carefully? I developed a list of photographic topics or scenes or objects that would force me to really observe the world around me. My idea was to periodically interrupt my strictly bird photography (looking for that one perfect beautiful picture) with a "nature break."

Both Leslie and Laws stress varying your focus, zoom in and out, from near to far, small to large, ground to sky. And always look for context and connections. What story is nature telling me? Thus I ask these two questions when something catches my attention: What is it doing? Why is it here? Leslie sums it up this way: "Once you notice something, stop to watch how it works, and learn something about it, a relationship has begun."

Notice, photograph, and carefully observe these things:

1. Ground-level, smaller than 3 inches, animal, vegetable
2. Mid-level, plants, animals (especially behavior, poses--multiple photos)
3. Habitat, trees, plants (context & connections between plants, animals, earth)
4. Landscape, sky, weather
5. Something beautiful, artistic: light, color, texture, patterns, shape
6. Smells, sounds (photograph the source, describe)
7. Human use of habitat, past or present evidence.

Then I need to put these in a blog post and tell a story, even just recounting the day's events, as if telling a friend.

Are there any examples of blog posts using photographs that could be described as Nature Journaling?

Several "birding blogs" regularly have more than just pretty bird pictures. They extend to other natural objects and vary the focus from small to large, finding context and connections.

In Crescent City (Part II) Jen Sanford takes us along on her trip in her blog I used to hate birds. She finds thumbnail sized toads and giant redwoods, purple crabs, birds taking a bath, an elk in the rear view mirror, and scenic rivers. She even gets an amazing starry sky against a Monterey cypress and long shadows.

Joe Quinn usually spends a dozen or two photos on the behavior of just one subject on Jo's Morning Walk. Such is the case in Apple Harvest Time at Lake Cuyamaca, Part 2. Here she finds a Red-naped Sapsucker eating apples. Other subjects in this post include a junco drinking from a dripper hose, a chickadee investigating a pine cone, and a jay with apple pulp all over his bill.

Update: 12/16/16: I found a "Photo & Journal blog" at William Wise Photography. Each post has only one or two photos--usually of birds--but describes nature observations and thoughts of the writer, an animal control director in Georgia.

So I took my "nature break" list, and ideas I've stolen from the two blogs above, and went out to Lake Hodges to see if I could create a true-to-form Photographic Nature Journaling post. Click here to see if I was successful.

Greater Roadrunner at Borrego Springs

A year-and-a-half ago I got very close looks at a Roadrunner... and it got very close looks at me (read Psychotic Roadrunner).

Recently one sneaked across the road at the Borrego Springs Resort. I was able to snap off these pictures from my car. Here are two typical poses--leaning forward in a fast run, and pulling up to check out if I was in pursuit.

Greater Roadrunner. Borrego Springs, California. October 30, 2016. Greg Gillson.

Winter Sage Sparrow identification redux

Your field guides are useless!

When the former Sage Sparrow was split into two species--Sagebrush and Bell's, one of the several subspecies (canescens) that most thought belonged with Sagebrush, was found to be more genetically similar to Bell's instead. This canescens Bell's Sparrow breeds in central interior California and adjoining central western Nevada. It commonly winters in in the Anza-Borrego desert in the creosote bushes of the Colorado Desert ecoregion. But guess what? So do the Sagebrush Sparrows.

The canescens Bell's sparrow is not shown in any of the standard field guides.

Two winters ago I wrote an identification article on separating winter Sagebrush Sparrows from the canescens form of Bell's Sparrow in far southern California (the ID post is here).

Since I have some recent photos of both to share, I thought I'd write up a little summary again.

ID: The main winter identification separation in the field is that the canescens Bell's Sparrows have heavier dark malars and unstreaked back. The Sagebrush Sparrows have streaked backs and thinner malar stripes. However, there are some birds that have faintly-streaked backs. What are those? Who knows. They go down in eBird as "Sagebrush/Bell's Sparrow (Sage Sparrow)." The back streaking can be hard to see on these active little birds as they run across the sand between the creosote bushes with their tails held high. Thus, eBird reviewers require photographs showing face and back before claiming one or the other definitively.

[Note that both Bell's and Sagebrush Sparrows have streaked wing coverts--paler brown with black center streaks. These streaks on the wing are adjacent to the back, but are not the back streaks.]

January 8, 2017 update: I should point out the experts are still unsure, so perhaps I'm fooling myself thinking I am seeing meaningful differences.

Sagebrush Sparrow (Artemisiospiza nevadensis). Pale brown back with dark streaks. Thin malar. Waste treatment plant, Borrego Springs, California. October 29, 2016. Greg Gillson.

Sagebrush Sparrow. Pale brown back with dark streaks. Thin malar. Old Springs Road Open Space Preserve, Borrego Springs, California. October 30, 2016. Greg Gillson.

Sagebrush Sparrow. Pale brown back with dark streaks. Thin malar. Old Springs Road Open Space Preserve, Borrego Springs, California. October 30, 2016. Greg Gillson.

Bell's Sparrow (Artemisiospiza belli canescens). Unstreaked brown back. Wider malar. Waste treatment plant, Borrego Springs, California. October 29, 2016. Greg Gillson.

Bell's Sparrow. Unstreaked back. Waste treatment plant, Borrego Springs, California. October 29, 2016. Greg Gillson.

Elon Musk is about to change our future

What do PayPal, Space-X, Tesla Motors, Solar City, Hyperloop, and OpenAI have in common? Elon Musk. Mr. Musk's business exploits have been compared to the Marvel Comics' character Tony Stark--the rich genius inventor who becomes IronMan.

There are several societal-transforming technologies that this visionary business magnate is developing right now that seem to be on the verge of a revolutionary break-through. But first, let me try to set up a bit of his history for you from Musk's Wikipedia page.

Musk was cofounder of PayPal, a world-wide online payment system. The success, and 2002 sale to eBay, of PayPal allowed Musk to create businesses out of his other interests.

One of Musk's early ventures was to try to buy refurbished Russian ICBM's as rockets for his vision of establishing a privately-owned space exploration company. The Russian deal didn't work out--they wanted too much money, among other things. He decided to build his own rockets--and make them reusable--for only 3% of the current price of rockets being built. After all, it wasn't like this was rocket science or anything. Oh, wait.

So SpaceX was born in 2002 and today we have Elon Musk's dream already delivering goods to the International Space Station, while the booster stage of the rockets land themselves back on the launchpad to fly again. Musk's near-term dream? To colonize Mars, with first manned flights of settlers starting in 2024. That's only 7 years from now, you know.

In 2004 Musk started funding Tesla Motors, an electric car company. In 2008 Musk became the CEO and product architect. Today's Tesla Model-S luxury cars (about $70,000 and up) are fast, quick (0-60 mph in 2.8 seconds for the fastest models), and go about 250 miles between charges. In October, Tesla announced that all cars it manufactures from here forward are being produced with the hardware to be self-driving.

Musk conceived and funded SolarCity in 2006 to slow global warming. It is now the second largest supplier of solar power systems in the US. In August of 2016 Tesla Motors acquired SolarCity.

In 2013 Musk revealed a design concept called Hyperloop. A transportation tube much like the pneumatic tubes at your drive-through bank. A tube between San Francisco and Los Angeles would be the least expensive form of transportation between those cities. It is still in the experimental stage.

Another of Musk's more recent ventures is creating OpenAI, a not-for-profit, artificial intelligence research company. The stated goal is to make AI available to everyone, and not have super-intelligent systems controlled solely by governments or large corporations.

Space exploration, self-driving vehicles, solar energy, intelligent machines--these have been interests of mine off-and-on since childhood. Thus, the technologies that Elon Musk is working on fascinate me. Personal computers (1977 Radio Shack TRS-80), the Internet (1991 World Wide Web open to public), and ubiquitous little phone-computer-cameras (2007 Apple iPhone) tying the world together brought revolutionary technological changes to society in the past 40 years. I believe Elon Musk has society on the cusp of another such transformation--or even several.

I'm pretty sure that colonizing Mars is much harder than just the rockets--it's not even likely at this point that humans can survive cosmic radiation and lack of gravity for the two year trip to Mars. And the success of even small landers on Mars is way less than 50%. I think that robotic asteroid belt or moon mining is more likely as an agent for profitable space travel development than sending settlers to Mars. But NASA certainly isn't doing anything to advance space travel. And who knows what will come from thinking big? Most likely, something we haven't even thought of yet.

Self-driving electric cars would save lives, reduce traffic jams, reduce pollution, and reduce reliance on foreign oil. Such vehicles would probably reduce the total number of privately-owned cars. Self-driving cars that you call up when you need them would certainly change the automobile culture in the United States. Uber has a fleet of self-driving cars in Pittsburgh undergoing trials in a downtown section now. Self-driving cars make the most sense in the near-term as taxis in dense urban areas.

And artificial intelligence? Visual perception, speech recognition, and human-like decision making processes performed by machines. Will intelligent machines take all our jobs or take over the world? Probably neither. But the possibility for changes to society brought by smart machines, self-driving cars, more Eco-friendly energy, cheaper access to space, and the colonizing of Mars are undeniable. Sure, it's the stuff of science fiction-- and likely our near future.

Le Conte's Thrasher at Borrego Springs

Four-and-a-half miles east of Christmas Circle roundabout in Borrego Springs, on Palm Canyon Road, is a sharp left curve that marks the beginning of Peg Leg Road. It is here that you turn right on to Dump Road. At a sharp right turn are signs for the Old Springs Road Open Space Preserve off to the east. Park along the road here and walk east. (Am I the only one that gets my internal compass mixed up here? I have to fight to keep from feeling east is south and west is north in Borrego Valley.)

The desert here is right on the edge of sand dunes with Fonts Point to the east. Walk that direction. The widely--and evenly--spaced creosote bushes along the road give way after a few hundred feet to what I believe are scattered big saltbush (see photo below). You are now in prime Le Conte's Thrasher habitat. As Sibley describes it: "Uncommon, local, and secretive on extremely arid and sparsely vegetated plains with saltbush and creosote bush and lots of bare sandy ground. Solitary; most often seen running across the ground from one bush to another."--Sibley Guide to Birds: second edition (2014).

Dawn at Old Springs Road Open Space Preserve looking east toward Fonts Point on the right. October 30, 2016.

I have visited this location 7 times over the past two-and-a-half years and found Le Conte's Thrasher only twice. In fact, the total number of species I've found here is 9--mostly fly-overs--this is very barren land! In almost 45 years of birding I have only observed this bird 4 times. No wonder--it's preferred habitat is barren and otherwise birdless! [One of my seven visits produced no birds whatsoever in 20 minutes of walking!] No birder would go there except to find this one species.

One thing that may have led to my success in finding the Le Conte's when I did was arriving as close to sunrise as I could. Also, in both cases, I heard the thrasher singing first. It was a brief musical warble with an up and down pattern, similar to House Finches (which are also present), but without any scratchy notes. Singing, yes, but very softly. Some call it a whisper song, others a subsong. This most recent singing was the end of October, the other time late December, well before the breeding and main singing season. As such, the song was very soft and first given when I was very close to the bird (20-35 feet)! I thought I was hearing a bird hundreds of feet away, but a few steps and the song moved to come from a dense bush I was walking past. It was almost as though the bird was singing as a nervous response to my close presence. [You may dismiss this idea, but American Robins on their nest squeak when you walk by--giving them away, when if they had remained silent they would have gone unnoticed.]

Why would they be singing at this time of year? Do they set up winter territories and defend them from others of their kind? Is it a response to the recording I played 5 minutes earlier on the December occasion? Or do they sing throughout the year? [According to the San Diego County Bird Atlas (Unitt, 2004) egg laying is documented in San Diego from 22 February to 25 April, and notes an early record for nearby Palm Springs, Riverside County, as early as 22 January. So late December could be the start of a normal breeding season singing period.]

A sneaky Le Conte's Thrasher running away. Borrego Springs, California. October 30, 2016. Greg Gillson.

I saw a shadow move and circled the bush just in time to see the bird running away at a rapid pace, holding its tail high. I snapped off a quick picture. Don't blink, don't look down to watch your step, and pay attention to your peripheral vision. Does the bird watch your eyes and run off when you're not looking in its direction? It seems so to me.

After the thrasher ran away I walked on in the direction it had disappeared, not knowing how I would find it again now that it had fled from me. But in a moment I heard light singing again and scanned ahead. There it is--singing from an exposed perch. I shield my advance behind one large bush ahead, then peer our carefully with my camera to get photos. It's a bit far, but there are no bushes for me to hide behind in order to sneak closer. In the low light most of the photos are a bit blurry--even with image stabilization. But this one turns out pretty well...

Le Conte's Thrasher perched up and singing softly. Borrego Springs, California. October 30, 2016. Greg Gillson.

Then, oh I missed it! The bird disappeared again when I momentarily looked away. Goodbye until next time, then.