Fifty years of insect notes.

P.S. December 19, 2022. I have been reading old notes from fifty years ago as the calendar year marches on. And sometimes find interesting stuff to quote and comment on. Gary Lovell

Fifty years ago on August 6, 1969, I started writing my Insect Observations which later morphed into Insect and Nature Notes and Observations, because frogs and reptiles creeped in along with birds, flowers and garden notes.

I originally had to write observations for Insect Life Merit Badge for scouts. I am not sure why I continued except maybe to emulate Henry David Thoreau’s chapter on battling ants in his book Walden Pond which itself has its publishing anniversary today.

The journals eventually incorporated my favorite critters of interest. Frogs, toads, cicadas, katydids and singing insects are favorites mostly because of my tape recordings so are followed more closely. Also giant silk moths, bees, wasps, hornet nests and world wide natural events and traveling.

I later found out (after rereading “Near Horizons” in 1995), I also emulated the style of Edwin Way Teale, a naturalist photographer. In his books: ” Near Horizons” and the travelogues “North with the Spring” and “Autumn Across America” he traveled off beaten paths, photographed and noted all sorts of nature and insect subjects.

I am on the 18th Volume now and rarely go back to read them again. When I did I found some surprises and things I didn’t remember. I had written in this journal through two marriages, one divorce, about a half dozen moves and lots of vacation, and several jobs and lost a friend who shared this passion. So for whatever reason I had for writing and continuing these journals they are now a distinctly different perspective and permanent record of a natural world in flux. They will eventually be bequeathed to the Toledo Metroparks. In the past year or so I started on an online social media site Facebook a similar thing I call Today’s Nature Note which sometimes refers back to old notes while adding a photo of some current natural phenomenon.

Copyrightht 2019. Gary Lovell

My first volume.