Small things, noticed.

Most observations disappear because they are too small to write up and too interesting to forget. Field notes are the format for those: a change in the light over the water, a sentence worth keeping from a book, a detail from a place seen for the first time.

Naturalists have kept field notebooks for centuries for a simple reason. Writing something down is a way of actually looking at it.

Each note is short, dated and unpolished, with no obligation to reach a conclusion. Places stay general — a region, never a precise spot. Some are a photograph with a line of text; some are only the line.

Nature on the map of ideas→