Naturalists Can Start Out So Young They Have No Idea What A Naturalist Is.

My interest in natural history, although I would have had no idea what that meant, began early. According to my grand mother I was always studying insects and worms.  The home in Sevier Street had a big stone back wall and beyond that was Mina Road Park.

 While in Sevier Street, St. Werburghs, I looked out after a Summer rain shower to see an approximately six inches (15 cms) long caterpillar of some type –it was literally covered in long, fawn colour hair so it looked like a long mop.  It moved up the wall between the outhouse and coal shed and to this day I have never been able to identify what it was.

In Germany, in the mid 1960s, while collecting wood for the fire in woods just outside Dalborn, my father about six feet ahead of me with the wood-cart, there was a sudden silence. I turned to my left to see a young fallow deer, a true “bambi”, looking at me curiously. Some ten feet (3m) beyond it, in amongst the trees, stood the mother also looking at me. This lasted some time before we all mutually moved off.

Back in the UK and while studying at Greenway Boys School, circa 1972, I was one of two pupils chosen by the science teacher, Mr Sloper, to help out on a project.  Teachers had complained that their cars were having something similar to rust spots appearing on their cars -even though parked under trees.  Using a microscope was fun and eventually we found the culprit. No malicious pupil (as the head teacher and others suspected); it was bee "waste" and as the cars were parked under blossoming trees it made sense. My first official wildlife mystery (after the hairy caterpillar).

Above: entering Dalborn c 1980s.

My grand mother had lived in Dalborn since the Second World War but had never seen any hares.  She was a bit miffed when I returned from a walk to describe watching groups of hares and even hare ‘boxing matches’!  Animals seem to have a sense that picks up on any threat and keeping your distance, observing and letting them go about their business is always the best way to go.

When I was a bit older I did walk through the forestry and hear an odd noise. I looked down and saw wild boar piglets and at that point I broke into a cold sweat because I became aware and then saw the sow.  She stared at me as I slowly moved away, walking backwards and not taking my eyes off her.  She never charged me (which was lucky as it was a conifer forest and no branches to climb up to.

On one holidayto Germany in the 1980s, as a family, we went with our grand-father to pick dandelions for his giant rabbits.  The route was a familiar one to us –out through the farm orchard, down the tractor path and then along a basic road between cornfields and the forest. As we passed a tree stump a good few feet from the forestry my grand-father casually mentioned that the stump was where he had seen “the sturm-geist” (storm ghost/spirit). Now, Opa had suffered a stroke so his vocabulary was good but not great –he was still “re-learning” full speech.  The storm ghost had an ugly face and was covered in hair and when he saw it the beasty leaped from the trunk and into the forestry.  “It sounds like a chimp or monkey of some kind” I said.  Opa smiled that smile: “No. We don’t have monkeys here.” I thought “We don’t have monkeys but we do have storm spirits!”  Of course, Opa was probably thinking “He thinks we have monkeys in the forest?”

Opa had been alone that time but when we were all together on the rough track one day, right next to where the sturm-geist had been seen, he said “Look there!” All we saw was a glossy black, hair-covered back leap into the coniferous forestry. If you’ve seen black furred/feathered creatures you’ll know that in bright sunlight the fur/feather has that sort of brownish, even purplish glint.  So did this beasty.  I rushed forward determined to see what it was but the forestry was so wild at that point I could only get five feet or so –but we all heard it crash through the branches of the trees.

My cousin later threw almost an hissy-fit as we explained the event.  I have no idea why he was so vehement in his dismissal of the sighting.  His explanation?  It was a “fishing bird.” I was puzzled having never heard of a “Fishing bird” –I found out it was a cormorant. I’ve seen so many cormorants over the years (we have them in Bristol) that I know it was not that we saw.  And besides, our critter was leaping not flying.

On another occasion I observed what I thought was a badger emerging from forestry across some fields.

 
Everyone, including the local ranger, assured me that there were no badgers in the area. A few nights later I got up to go to the bedroom window because it was hot and sticky and the midges were being noisy pests. I heard a noise in the flower bed, about three feet (90 cms) below the window.  I looked down and there, looking up at me, was what for all the world looked like a fluffy black fox with white facial markings –almost raccoon like.  I tried to reach for the camera at my bedside that had a flash on it and trying to do so without taking my eyes off the critter.  My hand knocked the camera and I tried to grab it –when I turned back the animal was gone.

Next day..there was that look again in amongst chuckles as I explained what I had seen. I was dreaming it seems. No such animal existed. 

A much younger bearded naturalist and the hill in the background is where I saw the 'badger' enter the trees


Back in England I went through all my books and –there it was.  Fluffy black fox with white markings!  But it was not a fox, rather it was a raccoon-like dog which is a rather primitive wild canid that can hibernate and they were kept by fur farmers before escapes in the 1930s and, of course, during the war.  I had seen one the furthest west they had moved (though that was not known at the time.

Next year I took the book and showed everyone I could in Dalborn.  Not a single odd look just the very, very annoying response of “Yes. You saw one –so what?”  I was sure this was a conspiracy.

So you can imagine I thought everyone considered me a nut-case.  However, one day my aunt said to my mother: “Ask Herr Professor if he wants coffee.”  I looked around and she was looking at me.  I had no idea up to this point that the family called me “Herr Professor” or that some of the locals were also referring to me in that way.  Apparently, my constant nose-in-books, asking questions and checking everything from insects, unusual plants and animals out had earned me a reputation!

So interest started young and even today it continues.