Great piece! I LOVE birds and one of the joys of my life is watching and listening to birds...but I cannot for the life of me remember most of their names, no matter how many times I write them down in my nature journal, and I've harbored a vague sense of unease over this, as though I'm not a "real" birder. Good food for thought!
What a great piece. I'm very much "in between" when it comes to this. As an Permaculture educator I need to know the names of plants to relay to my audience. But as a gardener, I don't feel like they add much value to what I do. For example, I use a lot of weeds as indicators of soil qualitites. Cape Weed (Arctotheca calendula, I had to look that up) is one such plant. I don't need to know the name of the plant, but I do notice a pattern emerge that Cape Weed proliferates on soil that's been disturbed in the last two to three years. After about three years other plants replace them as the ecosystem succession advances. This sort of observation helps me to read the landscape. Knowing the name of the indicator plant is critical to me in assisting others to understand the value in this plant as an indicator. This in turn encourages them to be better observers of nature.
You’re absolutely right. It’s all about balance. Knowledge is power and obviously important, but there’s still so much joy to be gained while we (very slowly in my case!) gain that knowledge 💫
You’re right, what matters is engaging with and enjoying the beauty of nature!
I discovered something beautiful though, a lovely app called Merlin which identifies all the birdsong around you. I found this so inspiring, as there is so much happening that I hadn’t appreciated before. It identified 19 species in one one hour dog walk along the river in Twickenham! 🕊️
ooh yes, I have heard many good things about this app! I linked to it at the top of the article actually (in a very subtle way!) and I'm very glad apps like this exist 🐦⬛
This is very true. I actually love finding out the names of everything, birds, insects, plants but much more important is to love nature and to spend time with nature.
I love this - it is so me! It has made me feel inadequate or somehow inferior but you are right! My appreciation is intuitive, deeper? I can be quite content just being immersed in it without knowing the names. Interestingly though I love studying the mechanics of the natural world…be of a juxtaposition I suppose 😃
Haha this is great. I have dived deeply into plants and flowers over the last few years and still struggle to remember names off of the top of my head.
Immersing myself in them in real life is way better than memorising Latin names anyway
I’m also hopeless at remembering people’s names - but I can tell you what they were wearing, what way they entered the room and everything we talked about in order.
This is such a great point, Victoria. On our honeymoon last year, my partner and I identified a bird call that sounded like "tee-cha", so we ended up referring to the bird as a "tee-cha bird"! It's become a lovely point of reference for us when we reminisce about that holiday, even though we didn't learn the actual name of the bird 😊
I often wonder what the “real” names for things are?
For example, I have been out in the bush here with writer friends who create delightful poems incorporating the English or Latin names of plants, but here in Australia, those plants have local names in the ancient local languages which seem to hang much more easily on them than clunky anglicised names.
Oddly, those poets are happy to name the birds with their first names (like Karrak, Koolbardie, DjitiDjiti, Wardong, Weitj) - somehow this seems more personal, more easy to remember, but the trees miss out.
I forget names of people and nature alike, but I will remember the feeling I got from them.
You're absolutely right. The local names for plants, trees and birds are often easier to remember and can tell you so much about the ancient history of a place and its people too. 💫
You're definately not the only one! I hadn't realised there could be so many others who struggle to retain names in nature like I do :) But without a doubt the feelings that you get whilst in nature, for me, are much more valuable. I will feel the feeling first and then if I want to look something up I'll do that when I'm back indoors. This was a nice, interesting read. x
Thank you! I feel so much at home reading this as I'm hopeless with the names but do want to learn. After so long away, I want to know more about the nature I now live in. It was thanks to your last post that Cow Parsley finally clicked and it took me 2 months to learn the difference between hawthorn and blackthorn. I do have an app which is helping but am suddenly very dubious as to its accuracy. This morning it told me that a very lovely black feathery tulip I'd snapped was a Japanese fighter fish!
That really made me laugh. I've had similar success (or lack thereof) with plant ID apps. Took me months to figure out the hawthorn / blackthorn difference too. The main identifier seems to be that blackthorn thorns are long and extremely vicious and you only learn that the hard way!
💯% with you!!! I’m in it for the moments of it all; and if I happen to stumble across and soak in some knowledge along the way, then that is just a lovely bonus! 🫶🏻
Such a great post! Sometimes I'm caught up in my "should do's" and I feel like I have to record in my journal every single thing that I notice, experience or learn, while I could simply enjoy the moment and treasure it without knowing for sure what bird was singing on what tree and why.
I know, me too! I mainly wrote this piece to let myself off the hook if I’m honest, as my memory is terrible! Sometimes I just have to remind myself I can still appreciate it all even if I don’t write down names or try to memorise everything 💫
Oh, this is just perfect. I'm bad at names too, names of anything but as you say it's far more important to actually be able to appreciate something rather than to know it's Latin name
Nature provides trees shade, relief from suns’s UV rays. Hand phones look up names. Provides derivations, history, nutritional facts , mythology notes. Expands knowledge of what is around you. Go to a tree nursery for a plant. Know the name so you won’t be lame.
Great piece! I LOVE birds and one of the joys of my life is watching and listening to birds...but I cannot for the life of me remember most of their names, no matter how many times I write them down in my nature journal, and I've harbored a vague sense of unease over this, as though I'm not a "real" birder. Good food for thought!
You are definitely a real birder! You love them and they give you joy. That’s all there is to it ☺️
What a great piece. I'm very much "in between" when it comes to this. As an Permaculture educator I need to know the names of plants to relay to my audience. But as a gardener, I don't feel like they add much value to what I do. For example, I use a lot of weeds as indicators of soil qualitites. Cape Weed (Arctotheca calendula, I had to look that up) is one such plant. I don't need to know the name of the plant, but I do notice a pattern emerge that Cape Weed proliferates on soil that's been disturbed in the last two to three years. After about three years other plants replace them as the ecosystem succession advances. This sort of observation helps me to read the landscape. Knowing the name of the indicator plant is critical to me in assisting others to understand the value in this plant as an indicator. This in turn encourages them to be better observers of nature.
You’re absolutely right. It’s all about balance. Knowledge is power and obviously important, but there’s still so much joy to be gained while we (very slowly in my case!) gain that knowledge 💫
I love this. It reminded me of one of my favourite poems, Someday, I will visit Hawk Mountain, by M. Solledad Cabellero:
But, I am a bad birder. I care little about the exact rate
of a northern goshawk’s flight speed. I do not need
to know how many pounds of food an American kestrel
eats in winter. I have no interest in the feather types
on a turkey vulture. I have looked up and forgotten
these facts again and again and again. They float
out of my mind immediately. What I remember:
my breathless body as I look into the wildness above,
raptors flying, diving, stooping, bodies of light, talismans,
incantations, dust of the gods. Creatures of myth,
they hang in the sky like questions. They promise
nothing, indifferent to everything but death.
Still, still, I catch myself gasping, neck craned up,
follow the circles they build out of sky, reach
for their brutal mystery, the alien spark of more.
The full poem is here: https://onbeing.org/poetry/someday-i-will-visit-hawk-mountain/
Thank you so much for sharing xx
This is such a beautiful poem! Thanks so much for introducing me to it. It's perfect 💫
You’re right, what matters is engaging with and enjoying the beauty of nature!
I discovered something beautiful though, a lovely app called Merlin which identifies all the birdsong around you. I found this so inspiring, as there is so much happening that I hadn’t appreciated before. It identified 19 species in one one hour dog walk along the river in Twickenham! 🕊️
ooh yes, I have heard many good things about this app! I linked to it at the top of the article actually (in a very subtle way!) and I'm very glad apps like this exist 🐦⬛
Oh wow I didn’t realise as I listened to the audio version. So good! 🕊️
Wait… there’s an audio version?! 👀
Yes the nice ai lady did it for you! 🧚🏼♀️🎧
🤣 good to know! I’ll keep that in mind for future posts 🤔
This is very true. I actually love finding out the names of everything, birds, insects, plants but much more important is to love nature and to spend time with nature.
I love this - it is so me! It has made me feel inadequate or somehow inferior but you are right! My appreciation is intuitive, deeper? I can be quite content just being immersed in it without knowing the names. Interestingly though I love studying the mechanics of the natural world…be of a juxtaposition I suppose 😃
Definitely not inferior! Being happy and content in nature is the goal and it sounds like you've got that sorted 😊
Haha this is great. I have dived deeply into plants and flowers over the last few years and still struggle to remember names off of the top of my head.
Immersing myself in them in real life is way better than memorising Latin names anyway
I’m also hopeless at remembering people’s names - but I can tell you what they were wearing, what way they entered the room and everything we talked about in order.
🤷♀️
Yes me too! I can tell you the most random facts about people, but rarely their names. I'd say that just makes us deeply intuitive people 😄
This is such a great point, Victoria. On our honeymoon last year, my partner and I identified a bird call that sounded like "tee-cha", so we ended up referring to the bird as a "tee-cha bird"! It's become a lovely point of reference for us when we reminisce about that holiday, even though we didn't learn the actual name of the bird 😊
I love this! 🐦⬛
I often wonder what the “real” names for things are?
For example, I have been out in the bush here with writer friends who create delightful poems incorporating the English or Latin names of plants, but here in Australia, those plants have local names in the ancient local languages which seem to hang much more easily on them than clunky anglicised names.
Oddly, those poets are happy to name the birds with their first names (like Karrak, Koolbardie, DjitiDjiti, Wardong, Weitj) - somehow this seems more personal, more easy to remember, but the trees miss out.
I forget names of people and nature alike, but I will remember the feeling I got from them.
You're absolutely right. The local names for plants, trees and birds are often easier to remember and can tell you so much about the ancient history of a place and its people too. 💫
You're definately not the only one! I hadn't realised there could be so many others who struggle to retain names in nature like I do :) But without a doubt the feelings that you get whilst in nature, for me, are much more valuable. I will feel the feeling first and then if I want to look something up I'll do that when I'm back indoors. This was a nice, interesting read. x
An excellent plan. Absorb the feeling first, then find out the name later (and don't feel bad if, like me, you promptly forget the name again ;)
Thank you! I feel so much at home reading this as I'm hopeless with the names but do want to learn. After so long away, I want to know more about the nature I now live in. It was thanks to your last post that Cow Parsley finally clicked and it took me 2 months to learn the difference between hawthorn and blackthorn. I do have an app which is helping but am suddenly very dubious as to its accuracy. This morning it told me that a very lovely black feathery tulip I'd snapped was a Japanese fighter fish!
That really made me laugh. I've had similar success (or lack thereof) with plant ID apps. Took me months to figure out the hawthorn / blackthorn difference too. The main identifier seems to be that blackthorn thorns are long and extremely vicious and you only learn that the hard way!
💯% with you!!! I’m in it for the moments of it all; and if I happen to stumble across and soak in some knowledge along the way, then that is just a lovely bonus! 🫶🏻
Exactly! 💫
It’s why I call everybody darling. Doesn’t work so well with plants though! 🤣🪴
I actually think it’s an excellent idea! Plants, trees, birds… ‘Darling’ works for every occasion 🤣
You’re on! 🤣🩷👍🏻
Such a great post! Sometimes I'm caught up in my "should do's" and I feel like I have to record in my journal every single thing that I notice, experience or learn, while I could simply enjoy the moment and treasure it without knowing for sure what bird was singing on what tree and why.
I know, me too! I mainly wrote this piece to let myself off the hook if I’m honest, as my memory is terrible! Sometimes I just have to remind myself I can still appreciate it all even if I don’t write down names or try to memorise everything 💫
Oh, this is just perfect. I'm bad at names too, names of anything but as you say it's far more important to actually be able to appreciate something rather than to know it's Latin name
Absolutely! 💫
Nature provides trees shade, relief from suns’s UV rays. Hand phones look up names. Provides derivations, history, nutritional facts , mythology notes. Expands knowledge of what is around you. Go to a tree nursery for a plant. Know the name so you won’t be lame.