Be Oservant

Trail Wood 25.2.09 Earl Plato

Writer’s note: I have taken many school groups on walks in Marcy Woods. There is often someone who sees something I missed.
I appreciate their observations. Most students
“observe inattentively.’ Edwin Teale, Connecticut naturalist, encourages us to be more observant. Here in is March log he wrote the following: “Not only seeing what we look at - accuracy of observation- but truth in conclusion is a first obligation of a naturalist. To see clearly where others observe inattentively; to see familiar things sharply in all their details where others see only generalities or indistinct, mentally out-of-focus objects; to note correctly what is taking place; and then to interpret accurately all that is seen= this has seemed the goal, in a ay the lifework of certain writers in the field of nature such as Henry Thoreau. Thoreau went about noting just how the trees look when the wind ruffles their leaves, exactly how the hawk mounts in the air, precisely how the spring flowers spread their petals.”
Writer’s note: He late Fort Erie naturalist, Bert Miller, encouraged us to observe things. As a ten year old on a late winter walk we came to a patch of Skunk cabbages. Spring was coming and the snow had melted around each plant. Bert asked us, “What do you see?” I replied, “The snow seems to have melted around each plant.” “Why?” he asked. We learned why. E asked, “Why the name skunk?” I smelled a leaf - no odour. Bert took his pen knife and sliced a piece of a leaf and the pungent odour assailed our nostrils. I have never forgotten that little lesson. Teale encouraged us to see nature freshly and exactly and through our own eyes.