Being a Naturalist

When people ask me what I do, one of my responses is that I'm a naturalist. Sometimes I get funny looks- people often confuse 'naturalist' with 'nudist'! No, I do not wander around the woods nude. For those of you who do not know, a naturalist is:

"a person who studies or is an expert in natural history,  especially a zoologist or botanist."

and natural history is referred to as: "the sciences, as botany, mineralogy, or zoology, dealing with the study of all objects in nature."

Am I an expert? I don't claim to be, although I have a lot of experience in many different habitats in different parts of the world. Here are the places I'm most familiar with:


1. Northeastern Ohio- I grew up here, so I know something about the basic fauna and a few flora.
2. Massachusetts/New Hampshire/Maine coast- Particularly the coast of Massachusetts, a bit about glaciers and geology, and mostly about birds.
3. New York/Catskill region- learned about beech/hemlock forests and the costs of preservation.
4. Connecticut/Long Island Sound/salt marsh- had a great time learning duck identification with a salt marsh in my backyard.
5. Georgia/Tennessee- where I currently reside. Still trying to learn about the native flora and fauna.


So I'm not formally trained. I never took a natural history course in college. But I think I have enough experience to at least categorize myself as a naturalist. I can catalog many objects in nature or narrow down their category enough to identify them in a field guide.


I am lucky enough (I think) to be going back to college to earn a Master's degree. Although I decided to major in Education, I will be able to take undergraduate Biology courses to earn my degree. So I am excited to take Zoology in the spring, and hopefully Botany soon afterward. This will help deepen my knowledge base- I feel like I have a lot of breadth, but not a lot of scientific depth.


I'll write more about being a naturalist in the future. It's a lot of fun, and one of the roles I never tire of taking on. Until then...