One characteristic found almost universally among naturalists is a deep generosity about sharing knowledge. Oh, you do find the occasional person who thinks that the purpose of learning things is to acquire status. But the vast majority of naturalists seem to feel as I do: You’re the caretaker, not the owner, of what you’ve learned, and nature, not the naturalist, is the star of the show.
I’ve benefited from this my whole life. I think, for example, of the warm welcome I received from local birders like Allan Keith, Soo Whiting, and the late Vern Laux when I arrived on the Island in 1997. I had all the information I could use on where and when to find birds, the history of particular species on the Vineyard, and tricks for identifying what I found.
The naturalist support network was even more important to me when I was a kid. Birdwatching was a decidedly uncool interest in elementary school and junior high (in high school, I finally found a small set of kindred weirdos). So I was enormously grateful to the adults in those days who made the effort to show me a bird through their telescope or help me solve an identification question.
This generosity with knowledge reaches an apex at events like the Northeast Natural History Conference, which I recently attended in Burlington, Vt. The annual event is organized by the Eagle Hill Institute, a wonderful locus of education and publishing in Downeast Maine. These conferences bring together hundreds of scientists, amateur naturalists, and students from throughout the region.
At the center of these events are brief presentations, nearly 200 of them in this case, generally organized into “sessions” focused on a particular theme. Topics range from reports on simple observational studies, like the bee surveys I presented on, to highly technical reports on genetics or population dynamics. With six talks going simultaneously, you have to pick your priorities; but there was not a presentation on this year’s schedule that I wouldn’t have attended if there had been time.
Much of my time at this conference was spent learning about new developments in my main fields of interest. An ornithology lab at the College of the Atlantic, for example, presented research on what factors determine nest-site selection in seabirds, while other researchers presented on the long-range movements and foraging patterns of gulls. I also spent a lot of time learning about insect field surveys throughout New England.
But I also took the opportunity to expand my mind a bit with topics I know nothing about. Strange as it may seem, “Paleobiogeography and Extinction of Spinocyrtid Brachiopods in Central and Eastern North America (Western Laurussia) during the Upper Devonian” was not merely comprehensible but actually interesting! Jed Day, a professor visiting from all the way out in Illinois, extracted an incredibly detailed story of expansion and then collapse from a smallish set of 360 million–year–old fossils.
So-called poster sessions are another major component of these meetings. Presenters, often undergraduate students, line up in a hall explaining poster displays they’ve prepared summarizing research projects. At this event, nearly 150 posters were shown. These sessions are often the first experience young scientists have to share their original research. Many begin their sessions visibly nervous, and it’s a wonderful thing to watch them relax as they begin to realize that they truly do know things that nobody else does, and that other people are interested in learning from them.
While these formally organized sessions are the backbone of a conference, enormous value also emerges from casual conversations that take place at mealtimes or between presentations. For example, in my own lecture, I mentioned knowing nothing at all about the diet of a particular bee species I was discussing (Perdita bradleyi). Afterwards, another bee enthusiast gave me a tip: Word is this tiny bee feeds on the pollen of (and very likely helps pollinate) Nyssa sylvatica, the stately wetland tree Vineyarders know as beetlebung. This seemingly implausible association between bee and tree is not yet in the scientific literature; it’s just something that someone observed, mentioned to someone else who mentioned it to someone else, until word finally made it to me. Now I know!
What about you? A full weekend wallowing in biological arcana may be more than you’re up for. But if you’re reading this column, you surely have an interest in natural history. And if you have an interest, you’ve surely noticed something at some point. And if you’ve done that, you now know something that somebody else doesn’t.
The next step is finding a way to share what you know. Regardless of your skill level, you have something to offer to your children, your nieces and nephews, your friends, or your coworkers. It’s the fee you owe for the privilege of learning.