Virginia Rose

How do you know the name of all those things?…is a question I am frequently asked.  So I thought It’d be helpful to give a overview of just how I have come to know the names of so many things in the great outdoors.

First, I think it’s important to note that since I’m so passionate about nature, I find it so awesome to be able to call things by their name.  So much so that as soon as I find something new I immediately have a desire to know it’s name, much like a new friend that I meet.  It’s important to note this because I believe it makes me capable of memorizing so many names with such little effort!  And memorization doesn’t come easily to me.  Thus, the same reason my children have amazed me with their retention of this knowledge…they’re excited and they want to know.

Deptford Pink

Every animal in God’s marvelous creation has two names:  it’s common name and the Latin name.  While the Latin names are very important, I have never attempted to memorize more than the common name.  To be honest, I can’t hardly read, much less pronounce a lot of the Latin names!  For example the butterfly that we identified a couple of days ago is commonly known as The Great Fritillary, that name I can say.  However, the Latin name is Speyeria cybele, not so easy to say!

Spicebush Swallowtail

So, on to how I identify things…basically, I identify items in nature by two main means:

• Internet Field Guides
• Book Field guides

As to which one I use depends on the type of animal or plant I’m trying to identify.  For instance, I have found a superb wildflowers of Kentucky identification website, I rarely use the book field guide because I’ve found the website to be much more easy, helpful, and quick to find what I’m looking for.  On the other hand, when I’m trying to identify a new bird, my Birds of Kentucky book always proves to be easy and great to use.  I think it probably depends on the type of learner you are as to what you’ll prefer.  I’m a strong visual learner, with a short patience span!  So, when I’m trying to identify something, I don’t like to sort through lots of wordy descriptions…just give me lots of clear to see photos and a quick description!

Pignut Hickory

There are many “general” field guide books and websites out there, ones that are for the whole country or regions of the U.S., but I highly recommend, if possible, trying to find books and/or websites specific to your state.  Who wants to sift through a mountain, when you can sift through a molehill to find what you need?  However, there are exceptions.  Such as, for me the only really good tree identification guide that I’ve found is one that is for the whole Eastern portion of the United States.

Hairy Woodpecker

So, the first thing that I would recommend doing is some research into what field guides you’d like to use.  Search the internet first by doing a Google search for your state, such as “birds of _________”.  If you are unable to find an adequate website, then proceed to a bookstore or your library to see what they have.  Some of the field guides that I use I was able to peruse first from my library before buying.  And as you know, many online bookstores, such as Amazon, offer the function now to be able to view a few pages from most books before you buy.  This initial research will take a little time, but once you have the foundation down for where you will go to identify things that you find, actual identification goes quite fast, especially the more you do it.

Blue Phlox

Here is the basic process of how identifying nature items works for us:

1.  Prepare!

If I know that we are going out on a nature walk, whenever possible I always grab my camera.  I use my camera not only for taking photos of our walk in general, but also for taking photos of anything new we’d like to identify.  I hardly ever take my book field guides with me.  I’d much rather not be weighed down by those.  A camera is light-weight and a great, easy way to save the image until later when you have time to look it up.

If I am, for whatever reason, unable to take the camera with us, and we find a new flower or bird, or other to identify, the kids and I all engrave as best a mental picture that we can in our minds, making note of special features and even taking notes or sketching a quick pictures if we have a pencil and paper with us.  Obviously some things such as birds, etc. move so fast that a camera is of no use anyways, so the good old fashioned quick visual memorization and paper and pencil are the best method of record.

2.  Look It Up.

Once we return from the field and are ready to identify our item(s), we consult our field guide of choice, whether book or internet, to start our hunt.  If a guide is really good, this job won’t be hard for you or your children.  For example, the website that I have found for wildflowers in Kentucky has them broken down either by season or color, whichever is handiest.  We’re usually able to identify a new one in less than 5 minutes!

3.  Confirm it.

Sometimes after I believe I have an accurate identification, but I’m just wanting to verify it, I’ll do an “image search” on Google with the name of the identified item.  If you go to Google.com and look at the top bar you will see a place that you can click on images.  For example I’ll type in “Virginia Rose”, and Goggle image search will pull up lots of photos/pictures from various sources on the internet so that I have numerous images to compare my photo to.  **Just a small warning, I usually view these images before letting my kids see them.  Unfortunately you just never know what you’ll find on the internet.

3.  Make a Note of It.

Next, when possible, we make a note in our nature notebooks along with a photo or drawn picture; and in the case of wildflowers we often press one for our notebooks.  If we don’t have time to make a note in our notebooks, no worry, I always keep record of the name with the photo on our computer (keeping the above slideshow on my blog is one way I do this).

4.  Re-Visit and Take Notice to Retain.

If at all possible, to help with the retention of the name, the next time you take a nature walk, re-visit or try to find this same item again and call it by it’s name.  And in the future if you see it anywhere again in passing, take the time to stop and say, “Look, there’s the Hairy Woodpecker we identified last month!”

In a separate post, I plan on walking through step-by-step for each individual identification process.  I’ll probably start with wildflowers since that is what we’ve been working on this summer.  I’ll have a list of book and internet field guides that I have found useful, both for my home state of Kentucky and just general ones that I have found useful.  Also I’ll give more details of what we look for in each item when identifying.  And one last thing, I will be working on adding a place for a list of my identification resources on my side bar too!  Happy Identifying!

Hairy Ruellia