Nature is Neat!

I’ve been getting into gardening by way of a little flower garden.

And I’ve been getting into birds by way of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s Merlin (merlin.allaboutbirds.org) app on my phone. I don’t really do phone "apps", but this one has been amazing. I’ve started a birds page to keep track.

And I got into bees by way of an amazing book called The Bees in Your Backyard. TODO: link to my book review when I get that up.

Confession: I never used to be very interested in biology. As a school subject, it was a lot of memorization. Nature documentaries are interesting…​but the ones I’ve seen tend to dwell on animals being killed and eaten by other animals, which I refuse to watch as a form of entertainment.

Furthermore, the subjects I’m interested in tend to be things I can apply. I think that’s why I like computer science so much - because I can immediately try what I’m reading about right away (for free!) and do genuinely useful things! And how do you do things with plants and animals outside of a mad scientist’s lab?

But what I’m realizing is that the more I learn about the living things that are actually around me every day is that it makes those things more interesting to observe. And as I observe more, I get questions and I want to learn more. It’s a self-feeding cycle:

Now I can have fun wandering around a playground looking at plants, birds, and bugs while the kids are playing.

Even beyond this, my interest in these things is growing a deeper desire in conservating the native flora and fauna in my area. In an abstract sense, I always understood that this was important, but the more I learn, the more I care. And the more I care, the more I learn.

I’m late to the party. My parents have always been keen observers of nature. I’ve read many inspiring things imploring me to look closely at the world around me.

I had to get here in my own time and in my own way. But I’m here now.