Fascination Renewed
Birds were my entry point into the natural world. I remember being fascinated by birds as a child, and spending countless hours both in the field looking for them, and at home flicking through the bird guide and excitedly ticking each species off as a 'lifer'. This passion has lasted almost my whole life, and will continue to. However, over the past year or so, I have garnered an interest in the broader natural world at quite a surprising rate. I have allowed my inner child to resurface and be engulfed by fascination once more; fascination renewed. One cannot pinpoint exactly why one is interested in one thing over another thing. For me, what rapidly caught my eye were butterflies. During 2022, I started using iNaturalist to document my sightings of anything moving, big or small (mostly small), that wasn't a bird. It's a fantastic platform that allows anyone in the world to upload photos of any living thing. The algorithm will make a 'guess' as to what the organ...