Exploring the World (small parts anyway)

Just bought How To Be An Explorer of the World , a book by Keri Smith. It's a cute little book that could be a catalyst for you; it helps you create your own "portable life museum". Main objective is to look at the world differently by documenting or collecting what you find during your explorations. Documentation or collection is done by tools, e.g. camera, glue, bag, print making, clay impressions, scissors, et al. I've been doing something similar all these years birding. Folks were actually doing this in the late 1800's (excellent treatment by Barrow in A Passion for Birds) decorating their homes with natural history items of rocks, flowers, birds, bird nests, etc. Now that I employ a camera regularly...I can really explore :-) Here's a primitive table documenting species seen by yours truly so far this year (today's highlight-brilliant colored Red Fox (Vulpes vulpes) just a sight record, no photo):

#Species Documented - 2013

Bird	Lichen	Mammal
60	~12	5

Hope to do more 'exploration' blog postings...take flight and find something good for your own museum.

Rough-legged Hawk (Buteo lagopus)