![]() Through his drawings and written observations, it is clear that communication is not confined to sound (calls or songs), but also visual (posture, coloration-think how often an octopus changes color or perfectly blends with its’ surroundings).įor instance, above is a page from Moynihan’s field notes on the Flame-colored tanager while doing field work on Barro Colorado Island in Panama in 1958–1959. Moynihan’s entries are so interesting because they are often enhanced with animal drawings, showing postures or other behaviors, or his written impressions of the calls or songs they make. His primary focus was on the study of communication in birds, primates, and cephalopods (octopus and squid). Moynihan studied animal behavior in Panama, Canada, and the United States. Ate meatloaf for dinner.” While most entries are dated and comment on the terrain and weather conditions or list specimens collected, others are enlivened with drawings.Ī good example of illustrated field notes are in the Martin H. Sometimes, they can be rather dry and dull-I looked for examples a little more interesting than: “Cloudy, rainy and cold. We have everything from stained spiral-bound notebooks, salt-and-pepper composition books, to government-issued, hard-bound green books with no printed format other than blue lines. Later, however, the books themselves change. Frequently, field books from the nineteenth century and early 20th century are often ordinary pocket-sized, leather-bound diaries bought off the shelf. Therefore, I looked slightly outside of the box.įield books and field notes are kind of like diaries, but with a twist. This doesn’t mean that there are 1,251 individual diaries, but it does suggest that there is a lot of material for research related to expeditions, collecting methods, things collected, hardship, and humor.Īlthough there are examples of more traditional diaries in the Archives, many are not digitized and inaccessible at this time. ![]() In honor of “Dear Diary Day,” I did a quick online search of our collections to see how many hits I could get using the keywords “diary” or “diaries,” and came up with 1,251. Diary, noun: a daily record of events or experiences.
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