What is a Naturalist

This story is mostly about me.

This story began as preparation for my interview with Barbara Tucker, which aired on her podcast Dialogs with Creators. It was not a script, but a process of organizing my thoughts. The conversation is well worth a listen. I have edited and expanded my original document.

According to my dictionary, a naturalist is an expert in or a student of natural history. That phrase is generally associated with museums such as the American Museum of Natural History. I use the term because I pay attention to the natural world, but there are several kinds of naturalists.

Literary Naturalists write about their observations. Books by literary naturalists abound. Examples include The Snow Leopard by Peter Matthiessen, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard, and Refuge by Terry Tempest Williams.

Interpretive naturalists tell the story of the natural world through formal programs. The Tennessee Naturalist program offers a one-year study program with monthly classes for anyone who wants to become a naturalist and volunteer at parks and not-for-profit organizations.

Scientific naturalists record data, and some naturalists are citizen scientists. They participate in research efforts by recording data to be shared with scientists working in the field. Data may be shared through apps such as iNaturalist and Merlin. Their confirmed observations become part of a database available to researchers.

Sharman Apt Russell worked directly with a scientist interested in Tiger Beetles and told her story in her book Diary of a Citizen Scientist. She also included descriptions of other citizen science programs.

I recently completed an online class with the author Janisse Ray through her Journey in Place Substack publication. She advocated having a spot to sit outdoors and returning to that spot to do the weekly observations. Repeat visits to the same place are advisable for those who want to know the natural world.

The writer Barry Lopez suggested a similar approach. He also accompanied scientific researchers and learned by conversing with them and reading their technical papers. Lopez also emphasized the importance of indigenous people’s wisdom. In his book Arctic Dreams, he wrote about some of Europe’s failed Arctic expeditions. He said these explorers might have survived had they abandoned cloth tents and other gear and learned how native people constructed shelters and clothed themselves.

Are naturalists environmentalists?

I prefer the word conservation because it is a bit less inflammatory. Conservation is an aspect of my naturalist persona partly infused by my thrifty mother, who threw out little and used every part of any resource. She saved bacon grease for soap making.

I spent my childhood living on a one-acre plot with a garden and a small orchard. A wooded area behind the lot held wonders to be discovered. The garden fed us all summer, and most of our neighbors had gardens too. Fall was the time for food preservation, and some of our winter foods came from Mason jars. Some of our relatives had family farms where they raised hogs and cattle, which they had butchered in the fall. They froze the meat for the coming winter.

These days, I hear we may face a food crisis, and I think we have ourselves to blame if it becomes a reality. Agribusiness has become an industry and teamed up with government agencies, particularly the USDA, to put family farms out of business and discourage people from growing their food.

Richard Nixon’s Secretary of Agriculture Earl Butz was a major player in this initiative when he said, “Get big or get out.” Wendell Berry talks a lot about this in his book of essays, The World Ending Fire, and argues that people should grow their food. A transcript of his debate with BUTZ is available online.

I also tend to agree with Indigenous people when they protest the industrial takeover of their traditional lands. Southwestern tribes have requested protection of the area now known as the Bears’ Ears National Monument. They have sought its protection since the Kennedy administration. President Barack Obama honored this request when he created the monument. He had to do this by executive order because Congress was unwilling to act for fear of losing campaign funding from mining interests.

Geographic Influences

I have briefly lived near the ocean. I spent nearly a year on Cape Cod living in a building with Ballston Beach and the Atlantic just across a dune from me. I could hear the ocean from my dwelling, and slept soundly every night. I saw whales from the beach on more than one occasion. A tide of sunbathers invaded in early fall and late spring, but it was quite empty in winter. A few people fished the surf from time to time.

Cape Cod separates a large bay from the ocean. The bayside has salt marshes and abundant bird life. Even the rare beaches on the bay side have birds because they get trapped there while trying to migrate south. This is because they follow the coastline until they arrive at the Cape, then turn east, continuing to follow the coast. At Wellfleet, the cape turns north, and so do the birds. The birds turn west with the coastline at Provincetown and fly back to the mainland. The birds continue to circle Cape Cod Bay until they fly high enough to see water on the far side of the peninsula, which they cross before continuing to fly south.

The naturalist instructor explained that scenario when I took a class on identifying water birds at the Cape Cod Museum of Natural History. I suspect that migrating whales have a similar experience in Cape Cod Bay. The only whale stranding I remember was a group of Pilot Whales that came ashore on the bay side.

I also lived on Assateague Island for six months. Assateague is a barrier island on the coast of Maryland. Again, the ocean is on one side, with salt marshes on the other. Sea breezes kept the island insect-free, and land breezes brought hordes of mosquitoes and biting flies. Wild ponies and the beach were the primary attractions.

Tourists crowded the beach all summer. Tourism slowed in autumn, and fewer people made way for incredible bird life, including a Snow Goose migration, though I drove to Delaware to see it. I missed them when they flew South to the Island.

I also worked at Blue Hills Reservation near Boston for a summer and fall and lived in a cabin at an Appalachian Mountain Club campground. I cooked on a gas camp stove and used a lantern for light. I refilled a water jug at a communal spigot and stored my food in a cooler. A dip in the pond served as a bath some days, but there were showers at headquarters.

I have visited two primeval forests, with trees that have never been cut. Warren Woods on the Michigan Dunes is a beech-maple forest, and Joyce Kilmer Slickrock Wilderness in North Carolina is home to giant tulip poplars and hemlocks. The Woolly Adelgid, an invasive insect, is destroying the hemlocks.

Tennessee

The natural areas of Tennessee and nearby states are my current geographic influences. I have visited and camped in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park and found it crowded. I have spent time photographing Pisgah National Forest in North Carolina and Tennessee’s Cherokee National Forest. Georgia offers Cloudland Canyon State Park and The Pocket, a natural area at the base of Pigeon Mountain. I have also hiked and camped at Desoto State Park in and explored the Little River Canyon National Preserve in Alabama.

Tennessee also offers the South Cumberland, Savage Gulf, and Fall Creek Falls State Parks. Chattanooga has Audubon Acres, and I have served as Board Member and President. The Chattanooga Nature Center employed me for several years and has since been merged with Reflection Riding Arboretum and Nature Center.

I delight in photography at Glen Falls and nature watching on the Riverwalk. I particularly like Amnicola Marsh and the Wetland at Curtain Pole Road. When the cranes depart from Hiwasee Refuge, the Ospreys soon arrive at Chickamauga Dam. The Brainerd Levee is also a lovely place for waterbirds.

Subject Matter

Sandhill cranes were a Tennessee discovery for me. I had seen four of them on a trip to Michigan years ago, but here I get to see a few thousand each winter. Their calls are what cemented their presence for me. I return to the Hiwassee Refuge yearly to scan the sky for them as crane season approaches. I have seen them circle the Tennessee River near Coolidge Park.

Appalachia is becoming more important as a source of material. My mother grew up in a coal-mining town in Pennsylvania, and I owe some of my storytelling ability to that heritage.

Defining Appalachia is problematic because it is bigger than what most people recognize. Locally, the term seems to be congruent with Southern Appalachia. The Appalachian Region Commission includes parts of several states ranging from upstate New York to parts of South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi. West Virginia is the only state entirely within the region.

Most of Pennsylvania is considered Appalachian. I once commented to some people who said they were from Pennsylvania that my mother was from the coal mining part of the state. They said I was thinking of West Virginia, and their state doesn’t have coal mining. They were likely from the eastern part of the state.

I write about anything I see or hear. The periodical Cicada emergence of 20024 was a highlight for me, but it annoyed others. There is a citizen science app just for cicada watching. The researchers would surely appreciate your assistance with data collection. See Cicada Safari for further information.

Rivers, marshes, mountains, and waterfalls are all possible departure points for a poem or essay. My poems frequently follow the triggering town pattern described by Richard Hugo in his book with that title. The town in his book inspires one to undertake a quest, usually to arrive somewhere else.

Writing About Naturalists

I encountered the stories of Robert Sparks Walker’s influence when I served on the Board of Directors at The Chattanooga Audubon Society, which Walker founded. I later served as president and researched his history. I wrote an article about him for the Chattanooga Pulse and was particularly interested to learn that he was a poet. The chapter on waterfalls and springs in his book, “Lookout: The Story of a Mountain includes all the major waterfalls. Each has a prose section introduced by one of his poems.

Walker published four books of poetry, two of YA fiction, three book-length nonfiction works, and several booklets and pamphlets. Anyone wishing to explore Chattanooga’s natural areas would be well advised to read his books.

Here are a few others I would recommend for anyone interested in the natural world surrounding Chattanooga:

Spring Notes from Tennessee by Bradford Torrey

Our Southern Birds and The Spirit of the Mountains by Emma Bell Miles

The Living Year by Mary Q. Steele – she also wrote children’s and YA books

Here are a few Substack publications I recommend.

On Texas Nature by Mysti Little

Chasing Nature by Bryan Pfeiffer

Easy by Nature by Bill Davidson

My writing about naturalists is focused on those who write. Here is a set of quotations from literary naturalists.