One of the exciting things about becoming an amateur naturalist — a student of natural history, and a keen observer of animal and plant life around oneself — is that the world suddenly seems to become much larger.
When you go for a walk, not knowing their names, all you see is birds. Sure, you recognise your standard pigeons and crows, but that’s about it. They might be different sizes and loiter in different places, they might have different feathers, but that’s all they are: birds.
But once you learn their names? Once you know the difference between them? Then, you don’t see birds anymore: you see the wood pigeon and the ring-collared dove, the coal tit and the great tit, the robin and the song thrush, the jackdaw, the rook, the magpie… The world seems that much larger, and that more densely populated.
And you can make the world larger still — you can stop seeing trees, and start seeing oaks, maples, birches; you can stop seeing butterflies, and start seeing cabbage whites, painted ladies, red admirals; you can stop seeing weeds, and start seeing spleenwort, herb robert, ragwort, red valerian, and countless others.
By no means do I know the names of everything I see out on a walk, or even out the front of the flat, sometimes, but just knowing a handful of names makes the world seem that much bigger, and in a time where our personal worlds have been squeezed down to 2km stretches around our homes, every little bit helps.
My interest in naturalism is relatively recent, but is also something I’ve pretty much always carried.
When I was a little boy, like most children, I was fascinated by the natural world, and would frequently appear at the side of friends and relatives with some new creepy-crawly in hand, apparently oblivious to their lack of interest (or sheer dread) in the idea of holding it themselves.
Walks in the olive groves around my grandparents’ home on Crete, or around rock pools at the coast, left me utterly fascinated by anything that I could find, and by the time I was seven, I would excitedly rush around with a net in hand, catching small fish, crustaceans, and molluscs on beaches, or catching dragonflies, beetles, and butterflies in fields and groves alike. Fascinated by the animals I caught, I would usually examine them in careful detail, interested in the way different creatures moved or behaved.
At home in Wales, I would often ask the names of different plants we could eat from the woods on evening walks — wild strawberries, blackberries and more rarely, raspberries, red and black currants, gooseberries, wild garlic, hazelnuts, mint — and watch spellbound when a new and exciting animal was pointed out to me: a badger passing by in the night, a pheasant rushing by in the woods at the edge of the road, or hedgehogs, robins, thrushes, that would pass through the garden.
Having grown up in the Wye Valley, my father’s side of the family could usually point out edible plants and most of the common garden birds — robins, song thrushes, blackbirds, etc. I was very lucky to be able to ask questions and get immediate answers about what this or that was, but there were gaps in my family’s knowledge — the names of trees beyond oaks and birches, the names of non-edible plants or forest flowers, the names of different butterflies and other insects, didn’t come so quickly to hand.
I always sort of fantasised about being able to know the names of things when I went out and about, but guide books always struck me as really difficult to use — they expected too much foundational knowledge of you, like certain words used to describe plant leaves or wings or behaviour, and in any case, if you were looking at anything alive, like a bird or a bug, by the time you’d flicked through to the correct page, if you could even find it, it had probably flown or scuttled away. It wasn’t that the guidebooks were no good — it was that I was no good at using them, and didn’t know how to approach the learning curve.
I never lost interest in the plants and animals around me, but I sort of gave up on ever learning their proper names.
The turning point, for me, was a few years ago when I attended a talk by Colin Stanley, a Galway-based photographer and lepidopterist — it was a talk in the Galway City Public Library about the Galway Butterfly Project. Working with Biodiversity Ireland, the Project seeks to educate people in the recognition of different species of butterfly found in Galway and the surrounding area, ideally to encourage them toward contributing to a local monitoring scheme.
Showing us different photographs that he’d taken, he highlighted a lot of the most common butterfly and dragonfly species in the area — many of them I’d seen before, but never known the names of, and now I knew enough to recognise some of them.
With my interest in the art of naturalism renewed, I went home and began Googling resources for learning about nature, especially about insects, online. These days, there are so many more resources than I could ever have dreamed of as a child, and so many of them make approaching learning about nature far easier and far more accessible than they ever were before.
I fell in love with a website called iNaturalist, which you can access from your desktop or as an app. iNaturalist has pretty much changed the landscape of how I examine wildlife and has taught me so, so much about different flora and fauna.
iNaturalist is very simple to use: either record a sound (for example, the call of a frog or bird) or take a photograph, and upload it. You can also log your observations with sketches or notes, but sounds and photos are better.
Note with your upload — which should be one species per upload, with separate posts for different creatures — the time and date that you saw it, and the location. If you’re uploading from a digital camera or your phone, the time stamp will often be automatically embedded in the metadata of the photograph, so that might be filled in for you.
Under the section that says species, you can make a stab at the classification yourself, but if you really have no idea at all, you can just be vague about it. If it’s a spider, you can sort it under Spiders; if it’s a flower, you can sort it under Flowering Plants. Normally, as soon as you start typing in “flower” or “plant” or “mushroom”, it will offer you a series of options, and you can just put in the nearest classification you’re certain of.
One of the incredible things iNaturalist does, however, is scan the photograph or sound you’ve uploaded and gives you a guess as to what it might be — if you put in location data, it will even put up species it thinks are a likely match, and are often found close by.
Once you’ve uploaded your observation, other people in your local community will be able to access your observations and be able to join in making classifications!
If you’ve just put up a rough category you think your observation belongs in, other members in the community might work to refine it. They might recognise the species right off the bat, and put that in — if not, they might refine the category more in order to make it easier for experts in that field to find, such as refining a category down to a genus or a family.
If you’ve made a mistake in your observation, other members of the community might disagree, and correct you. For example, you might have uploaded a photograph of one of these…
… and put it under Spiders. But pictured is a harvestman, and although we often call them harvestman spiders, they aren’t spiders at all! They are arachnids, like spiders are (as well as scorpions, ticks, and some others), but they’re in a separate category to spiders — much in the same way that a butterflies and beetles are both insects, but fundamentally very different to one another.
When I first started out using iNaturalist, everything seemed a bit difficult to tell apart, but the more that I use it, and the more that I browse the observations made in my local area, the more confident I feel identifying different animals myself. I often get it wrong! But like many things, identifying animals and plants is one of those things that you learn by doing, and with the option to just upload photos or audio clips, you can learn just while walking around and doing other things.
iNaturalist even has a little “mission” section on its phone app where it will recommend species for you to keep an eye out for — local species that you might see in your area, and might want to seek out.
The wonderful thing about beginning to get an interest in natural history is that you really don’t even need to leave your garden to do it — there are all sorts of bugs, birds, and other critters to be found in your front garden, and if like me you don’t have a front garden, you can always hang bird feeders from your windows or scatter birdseed on your balcony. Even just under your porch or under the stairs, you might see all sorts.
At first, it seems very intimidating to start trying to learn enough about things to identify them, but once you sort of get used to what to look for, it becomes easier and easier. Writing this article, I’ve obviously been scrolling through a lot of photographs to find ones to include, and I found myself laughing at how many species I knew just off the top of my head, whereas this time last year, I wouldn’t know the names of pretty much anything I’ve shared in this article.
The thing is, you don’t actually need to learn the names of every single thing under the sun (or under a rock in your garden) overnight. I would say that broadly my main interest is actually in bugs of different kinds, and so most of my knowledge is concentrated in different kinds of winged and once-winged insects, but I still learn what birds I can!
The best thing about having a smartphone in your pocket is that even if you don’t know what something is, you can snap a few pictures of it and look it up later, once you have time.
I mentioned at the beginning of this article how much bigger the world seems when you know the different names of animals, but it really is more than that. When you look up a particular species name, it means you can learn more about why it’s built differently to another species; it means you might read about its behaviour, or where it came from. It becomes more than a little scuttling thing that rushes past you — it becomes something more three-dimensional, something you can understand.
You become more aware of how many living creatures are around you, and how they interact with each other, how they interact with you and other humans — you become more aware of the world’s complicated crossing webs, and more aware of your place in it.
You start to seek out different things, and you end up finding things you never expected.
Last I was in Crete, in the summer of 2019, there had been a lot of rainfall. Far, far more rainfall than they’d had in decades, let alone years, and because of that, there’d been quite a bit of flooding on the island. On Kalamakinia Beach, there was a huge pool of floodwater that had come all the way down from the mountains, and lingered before it went down to meet the sea.
This meant that swathes upon swathes of toadspawn were laid in that water, and subsequently, a veritable army of Green Toads — bufotes viridis — sprang forth! I saw hundreds of toads that year — previously, I’d only ever seen one or two.
It really inspired me.
After all, if I’d never seen this many toads before, what other things might I see that I wouldn’t ordinarily? What would I find if I went looking for different things, if I really looked hard in areas I’d previously overlooked?
That summer, I wanted to see other animals I’d never really seen before. For example, I tried to photograph a Balkan Green Lizard… The picture on the left was unfortunately the nicest photograph I could get of one. You can recognise what it is, but it’s not exactly a pretty postcard.
iNaturalist recommended I try to seek out some of the snakes native to the island, but snakes are fairly timid and as far as I knew there weren’t any that lived directly close by — what I did know lived close by, however, were stone martens.
Stone martens are fairly common on Crete — they look a bit like a stoat or a ferret, and they’re about the size of a very skinny cat, with long bushy tails. I’ve only ever seen them in quick flashes in the corner of my eye, or dead on the roadside, and I decided I wanted to photograph one.
I scattered some cat food and tomatoes across one of the pathways near to the house that I knew they regularly walked over (we’d seen droppings), and I stayed out to watch as the sun went down.
I would love to show you a photograph of a stone marten — unfortunately, I did not take any. Apparently, they’re actually most active around dusk and dawn, and although I tried several different vantage points at different sunrises and sunsets, I never so much as heard one rush by.
But I had chosen to sit out the back of the yard, and I had left on one of the outdoor lights.
I don’t know about you, but I’ve never personally sat around a light all night to see what happens. What I discovered, though, is that a lot happens.
We all know that moths crowd around lights at night time, but what I had never considered before is that other insects eat moths — that a light at night time forms a central hub for all sorts of insects, and even bats or other predators, if you’re lucky!
(I was not. I did see some bats, but didn’t get to photograph any.)
Having been spending time in Crete for nearly twenty years, I had never before seen a praying mantis, and that night, I saw half a dozen. They would perch on the edge of the lamp, and when unlucky moths or bugs fluttered close, they’d shoot out whip fast with their forelegs, and devour their prey.
The creature above, pictured devouring a very unlucky little fly on the left hand side, I’d never seen in my life — probably because I’d never been outside with my camera at 2 in the morning, staring with fascination at the base of a lamp. I thought it was a cockroach, but what it is, in fact, is a Southern Field Cricket — I’d actually been hearing these things all my life, and never knew what they looked like!
Pictured on the left, we see a hermit crab — but not just a hermit crab! This kind of hermit crab, which I’d been picking up and seeing all my life around Crete, is called the St Piran’s Crab. As exciting as it was to learn there were new creatures I’d never seen before, it was somehow even more exciting to learn the proper name of something I’d seen my whole life.
I still feel that excitement whenever I see a new sort of spider or beetle on my doorstep — it’s a brilliant little thrill I’m still experiencing even having been isolated for a month.
It doesn’t really matter that humans are going through this big crisis — the birds, the bugs, the little animals, they’re all still there. Birds are still flying overhead, spiders are still making their webs, foxes are still creeping close to have a rummage through the bins, and isn’t that just brilliant?
If you’re interested in learning about the natural world on your doorstep, I totally recommend starting with iNaturalist, but I also have collated some more resources below!
Irish Resources
(Please note in regard to online stores that I’m sharing some of my favourite products, but due to various isolation procedures, some of the shops might not be taking new orders at the moment due to the crisis, which is completely understandable.)
Biodiversity Ireland
Biodiversity Ireland — the National Biodiversity Data Centre — is all about collecting, analysing, and disseminating information about Ireland’s flora and fauna, both native and invasive, across the country in all seasons. They are just a treasure trove of resources, and are super encouraging about getting people to approach citizen science, too!
They have the most incredible little swatch books, which are perfect to have in hand when you go for walks, especially if you’ve children in tow. Arranged in these tear drop-shaped cards, with a pin at the centre, you can easily flip through the different pictures to see what most resembles what’s in front of you — these are such great basic identification guides to use when you’re in the field, and they’re only a little bit bigger than a notebook, so they slot perfectly into your jacket pocket or the front of your rucksack.
https://www.biodiversityireland.ie/product/terrestrial-mammals-swatch/https://www.biodiversityireland.ie/product/terrestrial-mammals-swatch/https://www.biodiversityireland.ie/product/terrestrial-mammals-swatch/
They’re only €6 apiece, and as well as being able to buy them directly from Biodiversity Ireland, most of the other Irish wildlife stores — such as Birdwatch Ireland and the Irish Wildlife Trust — have them too.
Biodiversity Ireland also have a ton of online resources primed toward making you a citizen science — if you go to their website, the citizen science portal is one of the first things to greet you, where you can start submitting sightings of different species as you spot them, and download these brilliant little checklists that you can take out into the field (or your backgarden) with you.
https://www.biodiversityireland.ie/product/terrestrial-mammals-swatch/
Above is a wonderful guide to the 32 resident butterflies to Ireland, as well as 3 common migrants we see on the day to day — I cannot recommend enough, if you’re really interested in lepidoptery, their Crash Course in Butterfly Identification, which is a 60+ slide little powerpoint that really goes through the make-up of a butterfly before really going in on each individual butterfly you might expect to see.
It’s laid out so simply and so accessibly, even if you don’t know anything about bugs at all, and even if you’re not interested in capturing or identifying butterflies you see, each and every photograph is beautiful to look at.
Birdwatch Ireland
Birdwatch Ireland is all about — you guessed it! — birdwatching! They focus on all kinds of birds across the different habitats across the country, tracking migrations and bird movements, as well as population shifts throughout the year, and they have a host of great introductory info for any new birdwatcher.
Honestly, I think everybody in the country should be a member of Birdwatch Ireland, and I’ll tell you why for.
You get a subscription to their quarterly magazine, which is called Wings, and is very cute — they send you information about local birdwatching events, but the articles in Wings are about different birdspecies, the history of birdwatching in Ireland, conservation, and so on — and you get access to everything that’s in their archives, like all the old copies of the magazine.
But the crucial thing, for me, is their welcome pack — it comes with two posters, Garden Birds of Ireland, and Sea and Cliff Birds of Ireland.
These posters are my favourite thing — they have these really clear photographs of different bird species, their names both in English and as Gaeilge, and then a little bit of information about their behaviour (for example, if they prefer upright bird feeders or bird tables) and some more in-depth description. Especially if you have feeders up in the garden, these little guides you can just glance at are so useful, and I especially love being able to learn the names for each different bird in Irish as well as English!
https://www.biodiversityireland.ie/product/terrestrial-mammals-swatch/
Even if you don’t want to become a member, you can access loads of resources for free from Birdwatch Ireland! They have a gigantic list of Ireland’s birds, where you can search a bird’s name, of course, but what if you don’t know what it’s called?
Well, you can search by colour, season, size, and habitat , and then scroll through the results to see what matches! If you know the family, but aren’t sure what species you’re looking at — if you’re looking at a pigeon, for example, but don’t know if it’s a wood pigeon, rock pigeon, or even some sort of other dove, then boom, they have you covered.
Birdwatch also have a ton of resources on garden birds specifically — if you’re interested in gardening to attract particular bird species or not sure what to put in your feeders, they have articles that go into that, and their blog posts loads of interesting stuff, including games to play in the garden for kids at home.
Birdwatch Ireland also run a number of surveys on different bird species, encouraging citizen science — every winter they run a garden bird survey, but they have all sorts of surveys that people can help contribute to.
Irish Wildlife Trust
The Irish Wildlife Trust has been established since 1979, and have a whole host of resources on their website — they have so many incredible photographers and videographers working with them, and I honestly recommend looking about their website just to enjoy that!
The IWT also run a membership program, much like Birdwatch, and they will send you their publication, Irish Wildlife, which is… so good. I love it to pieces. The IWT really covers all kinds of natural life in Ireland — all manner of flora and fungi, all sorts of different insects, and so, so many of the incredible animals found across Ireland!
The IWT’s shop has some fabulous gifts if you’re thinking of getting the kids involved in naturalism — they have some really cute books focused around animals and plants native to Ireland, and they have plenty of compact pocket guides for use in the field, too!
General Resources
iNaturalist
Facebook | Twitter | Instagram
Even if you don’t want to use iNaturalist to upload your own observations, I totally recommend checking out the other observations made in your local area, and the sorts of species that are local to you!
iNaturalist have a wonderful little tutorial that goes in-depth on how to use their observations panel above.
eBird
Facebook | Twitter | Instagram
eBird is a fantastic site — unlike iNaturalist, which allows you to upload individual observations, eBird is tailored more toward people who are interested in birdwatching in concentrated bursts.
You log a time for which you were observing (which could be as little as a minute or two for observations while doing things, or several hours if you decide to sit down and observe for a certain period), and then you check off from a species list generated for your local area.
You can upload photographs and sound recordings, and just like iNaturalist, other members of the community can chip in to help with identifications, and your observations as a citizen scientist can go to helping international and national studies of bird movement and population.
I would say that eBird has more of a learning curve than iNaturalist, but if you’re interested specifically in learning more about birds and observing them, I can’t recommend it enough.
My favourite thing about eBird is actually their quiz!
https://www.biodiversityireland.ie/product/terrestrial-mammals-swatch/
The eBird Photo + Sound Quiz will generate different bird photographs and sounds, based on the date and location information that you put in, and then it will test you on what species you think it is! It’s such a fun way to study up on your local birds, and once you go out into the field, you’ll be much better primed to recognise them by sight or by sound!
Merlin Bird ID
Merlin Bird ID is a phone app made by the Cornell Lab, the same people who make eBird — it’ll ask you a few questions about the bird you’re looking at and help you narrow it down to a few local species which match your answers, so that you can make the actual identification yourself based on what seems most similar!
It’s a wonderful tool to help you learn and identify as you go!
Candide Gardening
So, Candide Gardening is not an app for identifying wild flora or fauna, but hear me out.
One of the things iNaturalist does not do is allow you to put forward captive or cultivated species for identification — you can upload them to the website, but if they’re marked as captive/cultivated, they won’t appear in the main observation stream. Now, there is a reason for this: the function of iNaturalist is as a hub of citizen science based around wild species, not captive ones, and it would negate the point a bit if people were planting flowers in their garden, then popping them up onto iNaturalist.
Candide basically does much the same as iNaturalist, but for cultivated plants — if you have plants growing in your flowerbeds or your hedgerows that you were fairly certain were planted, but you’re not sure what they’re called, you can use Candide to identify them!
Candide crowdsources identifications just like iNaturalist does, and if you’re a keen gardener (or an abominable one, like me) it’s also a wonderful place to share gardening tips and advice.
Bugs 101: Insect-Human Interactions, a free course from the University of Alberta
https://www.biodiversityireland.ie/product/terrestrial-mammals-swatch/
Bugs 101 is brilliant.
If you’re at all interested in entomology — the study of insects — or even if you’re not, I cannot recommend having a go at this course enough.
It’s completely free to take, and it covers the basics of insect physiology, the difference between various types of insect and arachnid, and will really give you a strong foundational knowledge to go on with.
It’s such a fun course, and especially if you’re going mad in quarantine, it’s a wonderful way to occupy some time!
Thank you so so much for reading, here’s hoping you take the plunge into amateur natural history yourself! Have fun!
About the Author
Johannes Evans is a writer, photographer, and bug enthusiast from the South of Wales, now living on the West Coast of Ireland.
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