A
GUIDE
TO THE
CREATURES IN YOUR
NEIGHBOURHOOD The Urban Field Naturalist Project Zoë Sadokierski, Thom van Dooren, Dieter Hochuli, John Martin and Andrew Burrell
CONTENTS An invitation into our fascinating world
PA RT 2 9
GUIDES FOR APPRECIATING 55 URBAN CREATURES
PART 1
GUIDE TO CROWS
THE WORLD OF THE URBAN 17 FIELD NATURALIST
GUIDE TO SNAIL S
The life in cities
18
The naturalist tradition
21
What is an urban field naturalist?
23
Some thoughts on collecting and feeding
29
Trailblazing naturalists you might not know
34
What’s in a name?
39
A few simple steps to becoming an urban field naturalist
Watching the smartest birds in the room Unseen and underappreciated
GUIDE TO IBISES
Bin chickens and their cousins
GUIDE TO COCK ATOOS
The black, the white and the grey
68 76 84
GUIDE TO STARING AT FLOWERS Studying plant sex
GUIDE TO LESSER-KNOWN POLLINATORS A who’s who of flower fertilisation
GUIDE TO HOVERFLIES 52
56
In case you thought they were bees
GUIDE TO BATS Big, small and fruity
GUIDE TO COMMON BIRDS And their antics
GUIDE TO DEADLY AUSTR ALIAN ANIMAL S Should you ever go outside again?
92
101 122 129 140
149
GUIDE TO MAMMAL S
The good, the unfortunate, the cute and others
GUIDE TO LIZ ARDS
Our sun-loving neighbours
157 170
PART 3 NATURE JOURNALING AND STORYTELLING ACTIVITIES
177
Getting started with nature journaling
178
Observational sketching activities
186
Observing cycles
202
Nature writing exercises
212
PART 4 STORIES FROM THE FIELD
227
Stories from the Urban Field Naturalist Project community
228
Coda: Over to you
247
Glossary Acknowledgements Notes Index
251 259 260 264
A FEW SIMPLE STEPS TO BECOMING AN URBAN FIELD NATURALIST Let’s turn to practicalities and get you started on your urban field naturalist journey. It can seem daunting, and you might not know where to begin, but these five simple steps will do the trick. Even when you’re an experienced urban field naturalist, it’s still always helpful to remember and employ these steps.
1
SLOW DOWN
There’s a world of activity going on all around us, so take the time to pause and really pay attention. Even the soil beneath our feet is home to a startling variety of creatures. By slowing down, we move beyond the immediately obvious and visible. We notice small things and we can appreciate everything at a finer, more nuanced grain. For this kind of attention we need to spend enough time to see slowmotion processes unfold. This allows us to tune in to things that are happening so rapidly that if we blink we might miss them. When we slow down, it’s easier to appreciate the living world at all its diverse scales and paces.
2
O BSERVE
We can hone our skills for paying attention to what’s happening in front of us and around us. Use all your senses to observe closely. Watch for those small
movements, tiny differences: Which insects are visiting this particular flower? What are they up to? Listen carefully to how a bird’s call changes in different circumstances. Smell the different scents on the wind at a given time of day or season. We might even touch and taste the world around us (albeit only when we know it’s safe to do so — don’t go tasting mysterious plants or fungi). By observing in this way we move well beyond creating an inventory of the particular species we’ve spotted; we take our first step towards crafting new understandings.
3
RECO RD
Keep close records of your observations. You can do this in various ways, from writing or drawing in a field journal to taking a photograph, or making a video or audio recording. No matter how you record, it’s a good idea to keep track of when and where things occurred, and perhaps
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also the weather and environmental conditions. In general, the more detail you can capture the better — you often won’t know what’s most interesting or important about an observation until much later. Videos, in particular, can allow you to revisit an interaction or behaviour, to slow it down and pause, to listen and glean things you might have missed the first time. In some circumstances it may be appropriate to collect specimens that can be shared and studied further. There are now also a variety of online citizen science projects— such as iNaturalist and eBird, which have a global focus; and Big City Birds and Wildlife Assist, which focus on Australia. These allow you to both record and share your observations.
4
A SK QU ESTI O NS
Cultivate curiosity about why the things you’re observing are as they are. This requires you to move beyond absorbing facts and experiences and into a genuine inquisitiveness about what they mean. Ask questions. Why are some animals more abundant on some days? Why do some plants thrive in cities and others disappear? The more you observe and learn, the more you realise what you don’t know, and the better your questions will be. Becoming curious about the ‘why’ behind what animals and plants do makes everything that much more interesting. All sorts of resources can help you learn more about animals and plants in ways that can inform your questions.
The guides and stories in this book are intended as information and inspiration to help you in this endeavour, but you may also wish to consult materials specific to your particular place and to the species that interest you.
5
SHARE
You can pass your observations, insights and questions on to others. There’s a whole world out there of interested people you might learn from — or even be able to teach. Your observations might be invaluable to others; they might feed into a broader web of information that helps us all, as a community, to see and understand the world a little differently. Some online biodiversity databases such as those mentioned in point 3 provide a platform not just for recording but for sharing and discussing your observations. Of course, you can also send the Urban Field Naturalist Project a short story (see p. 225).
REPE AT Finally, we begin the process again, with all that we have learnt informing our efforts to appreciate and understand our living world in all its beauty, complexity and rawness.
A FEW SIMPLE STEPS TO BECOMING AN URBAN FIELD NATURALIST | 53
GUID E TO
SNAIL S Unseen and underappreciated
W
hile it’s sometimes hard to appreciate when they’re munching on lettuce and other delicate plants, the snails in our gardens are getting up to some pretty remarkable
things. Studies around the world have shown that snails are capable of learning about new food sources and threats and adapting their behaviours accordingly. They also seem to be tuned in to their social environments, and in some cases if they are either isolated or overcrowded they can become stressed in ways that impact on health and growth, while also inhibiting their ability to remember things. Snails and slugs belong to the mollusc group known as gastropods (literally ‘stomach foot’), which all have a large foot with a tongue-like rasp they use to scrape up their food. In addition to their well-known terrestrial counterparts, there are many marine and freshwater species of gastropods, including abalone and limpets.
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SNAIL SPECIES IN AUSTR ALIA In Australia, as in many other parts of the world, the snails we encounter most often are those in gardens. In most cases, these are Common Garden Snails (Cornu aspersum, formerly Helix aspersa). Since people introduced this species to Australia more than 120 years ago, Garden Snails have made themselves at home all over the country and can now be found in every state and territory. But Australia is also home to an incredible diversity of native snail species — which, sadly, most of us never really see, and wouldn’t be able to identify if we did. There are more than 1000 species around the country, living out their lives on land, in freshwater streams and in our coastal waters. These snails are some of the unsung heroes of our ecosystems, playing important roles in processes such as nutrient cycling to create healthy soils. They are also important sources of food for many larger animals. For example, snail shells are likely to be significant sources of calcium for some birds during the breeding season, when they need all the calcium they can get to produce the egg shells that protect their young. So while snails don’t play a particularly glamorous role, it is a vital one. Sadly, all over the world, many snail species are declining in numbers and disappearing forever. According to the official figures from the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), worldwide there have been more documented extinctions of gastropods than of all the birds and mammals combined. They are, without doubt, among
GUIDE TO SNAILS | 69
THREATENED SNAILS The Hawai‘ian Islands were once home to one of the most diverse assemblages of land snails found anywhere in the world. To date, taxonomists have described more than 750 species. Sadly, almost two-thirds of those species are today thought to be extinct. Most of those that remain are also threatened.
GUID E TO
STARING AT FLOWER S Studying plant sex
WHY STARE AT FLOWERS? There’s little doubt that there are lots of good reasons to take time to stop and smell the roses, or flowers more generally. Whether it’s their vibrant colours or their pleasing aromas, flowers have long held a special place in our appreciation of the natural world. Watching flowers is also a gift to the urban field naturalist. It’s a chance to observe one of the biggest shows in town when it comes to ecological interactions: the evolutionary dance between plants and pollinators.
WHY DO FLOWERS LOOK SO NICE AND SMELL SO GOOD? The attractiveness of flowers is no accident. There’s a massive incentive for flowers to look and smell good. Plants have been
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engaged in an ongoing evolutionary relationship with a range of animals for more than 100 million years in an attempt to entice them to visit their flowers. These animals visit flowers for many reasons, the main one being the promise of a reward. This is often sweet nectar — the sugary fuel for so many bees, flies, bats and birds — but it might also be pollen, the superfood combining carbohydrates,
Pink Common Heath
proteins and fats. The approach taken by plants in this scenario is often a targeted one, producing flowers with shapes and colours and distinctive rewards that attract specific pollinators. Some plants take this approach even further, producing flowers that make it hard for other, less desirable, visitors to gain access to the benefits. For many plants, of course, these floral visitors play a vital role — they pollinate. Flowers are the reproductive organs of the angiosperms, the flowering plants, which are the largest
Pink Rock Lily
and most diverse group of plants on the planet. Part of the secret of their success is the unparalleled diversity of sexual systems they employ, interspecies systems that rely on evolutionary relationships of attraction, enticement and reward. Flowers are at the heart of all this activity.
Wax Flower
WHY RELY ON POLLINATORS? Sex is challenging if you’re a plant. The scientific consensus is still typically that outbreeding is more desirable for most species than inbreeding, so it’s important to find a way to avoid breeding with your close relatives. In the case of plants, these are often the individuals in your immediate environment. This
GUIDE TO STARING AT FLOWERS | 93
Stuart's Desert Pea
SLOW DOWN activity
GUIDED GROUNDING To begin, it’s important to slow down and pay attention to your surroundings, using all your senses. Find somewhere quiet and safe to sit or stand as a group. You should be close enough to hear the instructions, but not so close you are touching. It can feel silly, or even a little embarrassing, to do creative activities in front of other people. You could start by taking turns to discuss how you feel about doing these activities together, then commit to the activity. Choose one person to read the instructions, everyone else should listen quietly; there will be time for discussion at the end of the activity.
188 | NATURE JOURNALING AND STORYTELLING ACTIVITIES
1. Start by finding stillness. Take a moment to shuffle around until you’re all comfortable. 2. Close your eyes and concentrate on your breath for a minute, feeling your chest rise and fall. , allow 1 minute for breathing. 3. With your eyes still closed, take another minute to listen to what’s around you. Try to block out the human-made noises (traffic, other people) and listen to other noises. Can you hear birds, insects moving, wind in the trees? , allow 1 minute for breathing. 4. With your eyes still closed, shift your focus to the sensations of smell and touch. Can you smell plants? Soil? Leaves damp from rain? Can you feel the sun, or a breeze, on your skin? Can you feel your feet or your legs on the earth, grounding you? , allow 1 minute for sensing. 5. Now open your eyes and look around. Let your gaze wander and try not to focus on any one thing. Allow yourself to start seeing what you heard, smelled and felt. 6. For a few minutes, take turns to name what you can see, hear, smell, feel and maybe even taste. Try not to interrupt each other, just listen and talk when it’s your turn. If you’re by yourself, you could directly address the world around you, in your mind or aloud.
OTHER GROUNDING ACTIVITIES Back to Country: A Guided Reflection on Sovereignty is a 10-minute audio experience designed to ground listeners in space and time. It guides them to reflect, through mindfulness and visualisation techniques, on the deep history of the Aboriginal land they are on. Find it online at backto.country. Emergence Magazine has a series of ‘practices’ to help you hone your observational skills using senses beyond sight. See in particular David G. Haskell’s ‘The Aromas of Trees: Five Practices’, which invites us to engage in activities including smelling things in our home — such as tea, orange peel and cinnamon — as a way to think about the ‘inventory of trees’ present in our living spaces; touching and smelling leaves and bark in neighbourhood trees; and observing the changing seasons through the vaying colours and patterns in the plants around us.
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