learning to see

Every few weekend mornings this summer, I’ve been heading into the woods – not as a camper or a hiker, but as a nature reporter.

It’s a funny title, “nature reporter.” Sounds official, maybe even a little dramatic. But really, all it means is that I take my phone, a notebook, and my curiosity, and try to capture whatever’s happening at Sheldrake Environmental Center – through photos, facts, and little stories for their social media. A dragonfly balancing on a reed. Mushrooms that popped up overnight after a storm. A robin that just won’t leave the blueberry bush alone. I snap pictures, jot down notes, ask questions, and later help turn that into posts people might scroll through while sipping coffee.

I’ve been calling the series Through My Lens: Sheldrake in Focus – because that’s what it is. Not just a collection of nature shots, but a window into the way I’m learning to see this place and everything that lives in it. If you want to check out some of the posts I’ve written, they’re up on Sheldrake’s social media pages, linked here:
📸 Instagram
📘 Facebook

At first, I felt like I had no idea what I was doing. I love nature, sure, but who was I to write about it? What if I called something the wrong species? What if no one cared about the tiny beetle I found on a milkweed leaf?

But I kept going back. And soon, I started to see things differently.

There’s a quiet magic to watching a space change week to week. The way the pond shrinks after a dry spell. The soft yellow of goldenrod slowly taking over the meadow. I began learning the names of things – like cattails, jewelweed, and tree swallows – and with the names came this weird sense of connection, like I was greeting familiar neighbors.

I’ve always loved taking pictures, but this summer pushed me to slow down and look closer. I started crouching in the mud for the perfect angle or waiting ten minutes just to catch a butterfly with its wings open. And the more I looked, the more I wanted to understand – not just what something was, but what it did, how it fit into the bigger picture, why it mattered.

And I think that’s what I’ve come to appreciate most about this whole experience – it made me realize that storytelling isn’t just about people. It’s about ecosystems too. When I post about an eastern box turtle or a blooming patch of Joe Pye weed, I’m telling a story about that specific moment in time, but I’m also inviting people to care. To notice. Maybe even to visit and see it for themselves.

The funny part is, I thought I was just helping out – volunteering for a nature center I remembered from field trips in elementary school. But somehow, through field guides and Instagram captions and muddy shoes, I started feeling more grounded. Like I was part of something a little bigger than myself.

I still don’t always know the names of everything I see. And I still get nervous that what I write isn’t “scientific” enough. But I think there’s a kind of power in that – in learning out loud, in being honest about curiosity.

Because maybe the best way to protect something is to first learn how to see it.