{"id":8766,"date":"2021-06-09T19:28:52","date_gmt":"2021-06-09T23:28:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/yauu\/?p=8766"},"modified":"2025-07-15T22:43:58","modified_gmt":"2025-07-16T02:43:58","slug":"a-naturalists-field-journal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/yauu\/2021\/06\/a-naturalists-field-journal\/","title":{"rendered":"A naturalist&#8217;s field journal"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>I&#8217;ll be leading a workshop on ecological spirituality at Ferry Beach Conference Center in Main this summer. One of the ecological spiritual practices I&#8217;m going to explore with participants is keeping some kind of nature journal. Although most nature journals focus on musings and emotions, it&#8217;s also possible to keep a nature journal rooted in the practices of field biologists. An example of the first type of journal might be Henry Thoreau&#8217;s early journals, where he relates his philosophical musings to his observations of the natural world. An example of the second type of journal might be Henry Thoreau&#8217;s later journals (1853 and later), where his close observations of the natural world lead to deeper insights into non-human organisms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I&#8217;ve found lots of books and online resources that tell how to keep the first type of journal, but it&#8217;s more difficult to find accessible books and resources that teach people how to keep the second type of journal. So I wrote an eight-page introduction to the topic to share with the participants in the upcoming workshop. Click on the image below to read a PDF of &#8220;A Field Journal for Naturalists.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/yauu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/A_Field_Journal_for_Naturalists.pdf\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"656\" src=\"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/yauu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/Screen-Shot-2021-06-09-at-7.27.01-PM-1024x656.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-8772\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/yauu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/Screen-Shot-2021-06-09-at-7.27.01-PM-1024x656.png 1024w, https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/yauu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/Screen-Shot-2021-06-09-at-7.27.01-PM-300x192.png 300w, https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/yauu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/Screen-Shot-2021-06-09-at-7.27.01-PM-768x492.png 768w, https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/yauu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/Screen-Shot-2021-06-09-at-7.27.01-PM.png 1040w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 709px) 85vw, (max-width: 909px) 67vw, (max-width: 1362px) 62vw, 840px\" \/><\/a><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;ll be leading a workshop on ecological spirituality at Ferry Beach Conference Center in Main this summer. One of the ecological spiritual practices I&#8217;m going to explore with participants is keeping some kind of nature journal. Although most nature journals focus on musings and emotions, it&#8217;s also possible to keep a nature journal rooted in &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/yauu\/2021\/06\/a-naturalists-field-journal\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;A naturalist&#8217;s field journal&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[430],"tags":[924,923,70,1168,912],"class_list":["post-8766","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ecojustice","tag-field-journal","tag-grinnell-system","tag-henry-david-thoreau","tag-nature-journals","tag-spiritual-practices"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/yauu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8766","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/yauu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/yauu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/yauu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/yauu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8766"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/yauu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8766\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8774,"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/yauu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8766\/revisions\/8774"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/yauu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8766"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/yauu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8766"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/yauu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8766"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}