Reading the Book of Nature
An Interview with an Amateur Naturalist + Easy Outdoor Learning Activities
“All good things are wild and free.” -Henry David Thoreau
The purpose of this particular article is quite simple. It is to help readers get more pleasure out of the vast recreational opportunities available in your particular bioregion. I suppose it also has another purpose, to excite readers about all that awaits them outside, to encourage people to turn off the screen and head into the green. To be really honest, there really is a third purpose, and that it is to get people to take up the hobby of the amateur naturalist. As a way to spend leisure time it has a lot to offer, not only to individual happiness and fulfillment, but as a way of giving back to the community, through sharing knowledge, and to the earth, by applying what is learned.
I’ll be honest about something else too. Being a naturalist is not something I have any experience of beyond enjoying the outdoor activities of hiking, camping, and a bit of gardening. Naturalism is something I am interested in, however, and try to always think of writing as an opportunity to learn. “Write what you know”, the conventional wisdom goes. The conventional wisdom is also what got us into our current disconnected relationship with nature, so I think a case can be made for going with unconventional wisdom instead. Some time ago, the writing guru Steve Pressfield gave this liberating advice, “When we write only what we know, we limit ourselves to territory we’ve already covered. When we write what we don’t know, we launch ourselves into terra incognita. That’s where the good stuff is.”[1] I’ve tried to keep that advice in my back pocket, my instinct has often been to use writing projects as a way to explore unfamiliar subjects. Such is the case with the matter at hand.
Exploring is one of the things a naturalist does as well. Heading off into terra incognita, even if it is the terra incognita right near your home. Exploring is as much about expanding our sense of curiosity and getting back in touch with the sense of wonder nature reliably gives. Naturalism is a cheap thrill, because it doesn’t require much stuff beyond a willingness to open up our senses to what the world has to teach. This learning in turn helps sharpen our powers of observations. A few tools can help in the endeavor, but they can likely be sourced second-hand.
Society as currently organized isn’t really doing much to change the way we relate to the ecological web, instead seeking to keep us glued to an electronic web. Having a richer understanding of the way the insects, plants, birds and beasts exist within a web of interrelationship and connection can help us to see the ways these creatures and beings are not separate from our own life. Seeing how we are embedded within the complex associations of an ecosystem might go a long way helping us begin to repair the many damaged relations and threads of connection within the web of life.
For this iteration of the column, I thought I’d do something a little different and talk to someone who does know some things about being an amateur naturalist. He is my friend Erik Brueggemann, fellow public library employee and an Ohio Certified Volunteer Naturalist. I asked Erik a few questions to see what insight I could glean from his experience.
INTERVIEW WITH ERIK BRUEGGEMANN, VOLUNTEER NATURALIST
JPM: You’ve always been an outdoorsy person since before I’ve known you, but what inspired you to become an Ohio Certified Volunteer Naturalist (OCVN) in the first place?
EB: I went over 20 years where I went outside and liked being outside but I didn’t look at it or experience it, just enjoying hiking and going different places but not really knowing anything about where I was or what living things were there. And then I rediscovered Jewelweed. I can’t remember when I rediscovered Jewelweed but the first time as an adult when I reencountered it and had a seedpod explode - my childhood came flooding back. I started to remember all this stuff, this life, that I had forgotten. As a child of the 80’s and 90’s before screens became so important, it’s really all we had - go outside, read, or watch a Police Academy marathon on Star 64. All things I enjoy but there’s something to just spending time outside and not having anything else to do with an agenda or any meaning or making any grand statement besides preventing boredom. That’s where great life happens. I’m trying to get back to that as an adult.
JPM: The OCVN program required you to do forty hours of instruction and forty hours of volunteer work. How did that go for you and was there any particular part you enjoyed and any part you disliked?
EB: The only part I actively disliked were the exploitive or commodification of nature that I experienced during the class - this was not part of the class itself but something I started to pick up on. It completely turned me off from contributing to pay-to-play nature. You can get good nature without spending a dime. I get you want funds but bragging about commodifying every nature experience. It’s asinine. The class was also a very broad overview of everything. You don’t really learn much until you start volunteering. But, as you get out there and volunteer you realize that broad overview of everything really helps you understand more. The best part was just being out and getting excited about seeing a certain bird or plant or whatever and everyone around you showing the same excitement.
JPM: You’ve been at this for a number of years now. What kind of work have you done?
EB: Cleared invasive species, monitored streams, planted trees, planted flowers, made trails, remade trails, got completely disheartened when you start to recognize all the invasive species, gotten reenergized when you start to look past them and see what’s also there, I cut down the biggest multiflora rosa bush you’ve ever seen and then someone turning some of the wood into a pen for you as a surprise before the cuts from all those thorns on your forearms were even healed, led volunteer groups, monitored cover boards for Kirtland’s snakes, learned how to grow trees and flowers and then giving them away, and I helped turn a patch of neglected land in my neighborhood into a showcase for gardening with native plants. The best though is just being out there with other people and bullshitting about whatever and teaching each other cool stuff you’ve learned, not talking about experiences that aren’t replicable or “you had to be there” moments but about stuff you want others to be able to experience or notice. And then telling them where to go to see it or just showing it to them because it’s right there. But, this is why conservation works and why it matters - great nature should be easy to find and experience. The fact that conservation works so well should be recognized as this amazing thing. You can help. You should help.
JPM: What kind of programs would you like to do or see implemented around the city, (state, bioregion…)?
More local offerings and more recognition for how important conservation is. When I started, I spent more time getting to volunteer places than I spent volunteering. I decided that wasn’t working for me. I’ve committed to trying to do almost everything locally in my neighborhood. I can walk or ride a bike to volunteer. It’s better. There is so much good nature right outside your door that you don’t need to travel to get it, and you can help improve it. It is literally right outside your door. You don’t even need to open that door - just look out the window. We should encourage eliminating maintained turf that is unutilized for sport or recreational activities and replacing them with native plants that are contributing to bettering where we live. I’m all for turf as a landscape accent but using flower beds to accent turf? Flip it.
JPM: Keeping your certification requires an additional thirty hours of volunteer work and / or continuing education every year. What does that look like in practice?
EB: It’s pretty easy. The opportunities are out there in abundance, you just need to find what type of volunteering you enjoy. Try a bunch of places - if it doesn’t check all your boxes then try somewhere else. I’ve probably stopped volunteering at 75% of the places I tried because it wasn’t a good fit for me or whoever lead the events retired or switched jobs. In Cincinnati it’s been pretty easy to start volunteer groups at the parks closest to my house and just regularly hold events that are supported by our local Parks. People show up to help. At a certain point you might transition from just showing up to wanting more. Doing more is also possible when you’re out there regularly learning things and meeting people.
JPM: How has becoming a naturalist changed your relationship with nature?
EB: Good nature is everywhere. I think exploring everything close to you is often overlooked in pursuit of grand vistas or experiences. Look closer at what you got. Learn more about what you got. It’s worth it. You can help make it better. If you can’t get good nature by looking out a window - whose fault is that? It’s yours. I always try and get people to go with me when I need to drive somewhere for nature. The amount of good nature that is within 2 hours of Cincinnati is pretty phenomenal. I want to get more people to recognize it. To look closer to where you are. Travel less. Experience more. Help maintain it.
JPM: You’ve worked at book stores and at the public library for a long time and I know you like to read and collect books. What authors or books would you recommend for someone who wanted to become a naturalist?
EB: Whatever speaks to you. Novels are a great place to get great nature writing. Rereading some of the novels I read before I knew what the things mentioned look or act like is a completely different experience. I’ve gotten paid to recommend books for over 20 years - I can’t just generally recommend stuff. I need more info. I can give you a list of what I like and enjoy but you might hate it because we aren’t the same even if we’re both interested in the same. Kathleen Jamie and Jim Harrison come to mind. They couldn’t be more different but, as far as nature writing goes: you can’t do much better. Once you get out there and start to learn more, you’ll realize you’re very interested in this thing but not at all in that thing and then roll from there. A great place to start is just having an idea how interconnected everything is and/or how important certain living things are for other living things. The Nature of Oaks by Douglas Tallamy is a great intro on this topic. Any book about a specific place over time is also a good primer for this. If you start to read something and you don’t like it - stop. Find something else.
JPM: What would you say to someone who is interested in becoming a naturalist, but maybe lives in a state where they don’t have a program like this and they are starting off alone? Have any advice?
EB: Find a group close to you and get involved. Start something if you don’t have anything around you. Get involved with your Community Council. Talk to your Park boards. Think smaller. Lower your goals. Be patient. Be practical. Start in your yard. Just start doing stuff.
JPM: Is there anything else you’d like to add?
EB: Just go outside. Go for a walk. Expect nothing. I probably enjoyed my walk to work today more than someone did on their last trip to wherever. Take binoculars or don’t. Get a fishing license to start exploring all that happens under water. Just sit somewhere for hours and absorb what happens all around you because that’s the best thing you could be doing. Be interested in learning new things and trying new experiences. Have your mind blown in your backyard or around the corner. Don’t forage in urban areas where native species are less prolific. By all means experience nature by touching, smelling, and tasting but don’t take it home with you and make a meal if you didn’t grow it. Leave it for someone else to experience. Learn how to grow whatever you’re enamored with. Delete all your social media and stay off the internet unless you can’t - live through your own experiences not theirs. Share with the person standing next to you.
JPM: Thanks for sharing your experiences with us, and your attitude of “just get started where you are,” it’s very much appreciated.
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As Erik pointed out, becoming a naturalist might be as easy as staying off social media and stepping outside your door to go for a walk. Even just adding a little bit here and there to what you already know about the flora and fauna in your neighborhood can help you feel more connected to the vibrant intricacy of life happening all around us. In the spirit of “just start doing stuff” let’s look at four activities for getting out there and on with the show.
BIRDOLOGY FOR BEGINNERS
Bird is the word. Look to the air! Birdology is to biology what biology is to… oh, nevermind. Studying our feathered friends in the sky is a timeless pursuit. You can even do it in the dead of winter, looking out your window. No special equipment is required, but some might help. A few bird identification books. A pair of binoculars. That’s more than enough to get going. You might want a notebook if you get serious about this form of playfulness. Making notes and filling in the birds you’ve “collected” in your sightings along with other observations is as much of a thrill for the birder as is catching a distant DX station for the radio geek.
Once a bird book has been secured (check one out from the library or pick one up from a good independent or secondhand bookstore) choose a bird from its pages. One you haven’t seen before, but is one that would be in your area that time of year. With this bird picked out, make an effort to go out and find the bird. When you have tracked down the bird in the wild, even the urban wild, you’ll feel a sense of accomplishment, and now your mind will know this creature and have a connection to it, and you won’t have to look for the book to know what it is you are seeing in front of you. Rinse and repeat.
Another way to go about this is to flip the above process, and go out and see what you might find, then identify the bird. With each new type and species of bird you see, you’ll be adding to your inner repository and grow the ability to check things out in the library of life. The same approach can be taken with trees, plants, insects...
Matching birdsong to the bird singing is another way to proceed in the fine art of birdology. Or you can learn about murmuration and the behavior of flocks. The more you learn the more you’ll want to know. For instance, did you know that flocking is a way for our feathered friends to conserve energy? Long flights along migratory routes require a lot of energy to be spent. Flying together increases their aerodynamics, reducing the amount of expenditure they each have to put into arriving at their destination.[2]
ACCEPTING DINERGY
The energy flows involved with a bird species during migration are just one example of the way energy makes up a vital part of an ecology. As regular readers of mine will perhaps understand, we live in a world of limits. The disturbances and multiple crises ongoing around the world can be understood in one way as the result of people trying to ignore the limits of growth, the limits of extraction, the limits of how much energy can be used with giving energy back.
Yet limits are what give form to our bodies, and the shape of everything we seek to study in the natural world, whether it’s a hawk making a spiral in the sky or a mighty oak tree, gnarled and twisted. The architect and philosopher György Doczi showed this with elegance in his book The Power of Limits: Proportional Harmonies in Nature, Art, and Architecture. This illustrated book shows just how much form in art and nature is predicated on the limits and forces impinging on a natural feature or species. In his book he also introduced the concept of dinergy, a word he coined, to describe the relationship between energy and its limits. He arrived at the word by combining the Greek dia, which means across, through, and opposing, and energy. Opposition gives something to push against, a thrust block for their own evolution causing them to adapt in ways they wouldn’t have if not faced with particular limits.
Dinergy can itself be contrasted against synergy, which is about the cooperation between two or more people or forces. Synergy has caught on quite a bit more in our culture as a concept than dinergy has. Embracing limits and limitation isn’t popular in a society still caught under the spell of bigger being better, and expansion as the only form of growth. Despite its fringe status as a concept, dinergy is a useful one to have on hand in the mental toolkit. Studying how limits work in nature, can give us a greater appreciation for limits in our own life. Instead of thinking of limits as things that impinge upon our freedom, we can start to think of limits as powerful ways for shaping the way live into something more beautiful than it is now.
Limiting the area we explore and work in the quest to learn more about nature is one way to apply a useful limit. As Erik mentioned, looking to the grand vistas of faraway places often causes people to overlook what is right outside their doorstep, in their own watershed.
FLOWING WITH YOUR WATERSHED
If energy flows and limitations can shape a species, those flows certainly shape the environment and ecosystems of the world as carved out by the precipitous flow of H2O.
Learning about the watershed you live in, and how it supports a plethora of life is another to way to ease into getting a better sense of our immediate surroundings. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, a watershed is “a land area that channels rainfall and snowmelt to creeks, streams, and rivers, and eventually to outflow points such as reservoirs, bays, and the ocean.”[3] If you live inland exploring your watershed could begin with visiting the rivers and lakes nearest you, tracing the tributaries from the large rivers to the little streams. There’s not much better than a wild swim or a paddle down a glinting stream or glistening lake in the summer months. If you happen to be near an ocean, it doesn’t get more primal than interacting with the ebb and flow of the tide and its ever-shifting waves, the salt wind in your hair.
As I mentioned in my last article on bioregions, a watershed seems to me a more interesting way to think about plots of land rather than the sighted lines and squared off bits used by surveyors for partitioning space. Another way to think about bioregions in terms of water, would be by looking at the major aquifers underneath our feet.
A fun way to get an idea of your watershed and its contours is to find a map of your area with its rivers, creeks, lakes, and put a piece of tracing paper over top of the map. Trace out only the areas of water on the map. Starting to see those lines as the primary demarcations of space, can shift your mental mapping of your home area away from streets, big box stores and coffee shops. Everything becomes more squiggly, curvy, less linear, boxed in to a square.
FUN WITH MINEAROLOGY
Go to any stream and your liable to find a plentitude of rocks. Or at least dirt and mud. Hanging out in the creeks, you might just study the stones as much as the crawdads swimming in a shallow pool, The stones themselves composed of minerals. Taken for granite so much of the time, understanding something about the mineral kingdom gives new appreciation for life and how shaped we are by these raw materials of life.
Minerals are like geological Legos. They build things up, but we need many kinds of them to make a structure. Eight different elements make up most of the minerals. These include aluminum, calcium, iron, magnesium, oxygen, potassium, silicon and sodium. In order to be considered a mineral these elements need to repeat in a regular pattern.
Knowing a thing or two about minerals can also help us with things like gardening. Erik had mentioned to me just how much “bedrock influences soil pH. It’s another reason why some plants won’t grow in certain areas besides sun and moisture. Hamilton County [Ohio] is alkaline because of all the limestone. Areas with sandstone are more acidic - rhododendrons and blueberries need acidic soil - we don’t have either of them occurring naturally in Hamilton even though they’re native to Ohio - head East Young Man.”
READING THE BOOK OF NATURE
I usually end these articles with the RE/SOURCES section that is at once bibliography and suggestive reading for further exploration on a topic. Instead of doing that this time, I’d like to go out and suggest that you hunt for your own books. As Erik noted, your particular inclinations in studying nature will draw you to what you like, more than I can direct you to what you will find inspiring. I have books on vultures, turtles, wolves, wildflowers, the arctic regions and an urban tree handbook stashed among the local hiking guides and other titles.
That said, I can’t help but make an observation and a suggestion when it comes to books about nature and science. Working in a library for my entire adult life thus far, one of my favorite things to do has been to wander the stacks. These are a place of wonder. There are stark differences between the books published for children between the 1950s and the 1980s, and those published between the 1990s and the 2020s. Comparing them is instructive. Perhaps the most striking thing about these differences is how much smarter those books seemed to expect the children to be, how much more they already expected them to understand about the world around them. I think it also points back to the time that Erik mentioned when it was routine for kids to go outside and be left to their own devices.
At the same time, it wasn’t as uncommon for kids to have hobbies that were a bit more involved than what is on the market today. When I think of some of the noxious things I mixed up with my chemistry sets, it’s perhaps not hard to wonder why, in this land of lawsuits and litigation, those kind of kits and instructional books aren’t as widespread as they once were. Kids used to really experiment with things back then, and I’m not just talking about playing doctor. I’m talking electricity, chemicals, biology.
I’ve found those older books just as useful for learning about a topic such as botany as an adult, as I have some of the most current creative nonfiction. They make great primers and would also be useful sharing with any children in your life. See if you can hunt any of these down at the library or pick up on the cheap second hand to add to your own collection.
The best book to read is outside. So after you’ve taken in the stories presented by our intrepid editor get outside and let the play of light on water, the sound of the wind in the trees, the sight of birds in the sky, and the crossing of mammals in the field, whisper their own stories.
[1] https://stevenpressfield.com/2010/06/writing-wednesdays-6-write-what-you-dont-kow/
[2] https://www.hummingbirdsplus.org/nature-blog-network/flocking-behavior-provides-energy-conservation-during-migration/
[3] https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/watershed.html
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This article originally appeared in the Spring 2025 issue of New Maps.
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Do you know the "Merlin" app by Cornell? Honesty, its one of the most fun apps. It records well, around you, but it looks for bird songs and then IDs them for you based on your location and sonic signature.
If you are starting out from 0 on birding, I think it can really help and once you do it a few times you really get a sense of the birds around you.