Below are a number of suggestions that you might wish to consider when setting up and using your journal.

Place your name and contact information in a prominent place in your journal so if you ever become separated from it the kind the folks who find your journal will be able to locate you.

 

Save the first page of your journal for a title page to describe the contents.  You can prepare the title page before you start the journal or work on it as the journal progresses or wait until it is completed.

Your personal nature journal should contain some basic reference information that should include:

• Date

• Location

• Time

• Weather condition

• Your first sensory impressions of the site or event

Other reference information that you might consider to place in your journal may include:

• Location map

• List of people that were present

• List of flora and fauna observed or hear

• Animal behavior observations

This basic information will be useful at a later date when you are reviewing your journals and it may surprise you how these few reference clues will jog your memory back to the moment when the journal entries were first made.

You may wish to keep a separate journal for different activities, for example:

• Science and data collection – science projects, birding trips, nature outings

• A chronological record – observations from a specific location over time or the change of seasons

• Yearly journal – Record your year by carrying a journal with you wherever you go

• Trip journal – A journal kept for a specific trip or vacation

• Specific site journal – backyard, the Poconos, the shore

Keeping Your Journaling Active

 

Keeping an active nature journal is not an easy task with all of today's diversions.  Most likely you will not be making entries every day and when long periods of time creep in between entries your journal will soon become inactive and remain idle.  I speak to this from experience I have a number of journals that were started with great intentions but remain idle and nearly empty. 

 

 In order to keep my journaling activity and interest viable I recently devised several schemes to allow me journal in some fashion daily.

 

I realized that my business notes, thoughts, and writings were in fact a journal so I restructured the way I keep my daily business notes to a more personal journaling-style.  I now include pertinent information like date, time, place, and other notations that will help me recall the moment in time the notes were recorded.  Being an avid doodler my business notes often include sketches and drawings especially if notes are being taken during long boring meetings.

 

I also now keep several different subject matter journals which include a pocket journal that provides me with more opportunities to maintain my journaling as a daily activity.

 

Structuring the way you record your daily activity notes to a personal journal-style will keep you in touch with your nature journal that will constantly beckon for you to take a break, walk in the woods, relax, and fill its pages with your thoughts, drawings, and new discoveries.

 

Jim Lockyer