I carry a notebook with me every time I go anywhere out of Kathmandu valley. Although, I can not record everything I see, I try to record as much as possible. Birds make my number one priority as I am very much into them.

Here are five reasons why you should do that too.

1. Your memory is never that good

No matter how sharp you are, you are still human. Our memories tend to fade with time and sometimes it gets to the point where our memory is not even partially correct. We can alter our memory. If you have a written record of it, it will never change. As someone I respect said “a faint ink is better than the best memory”.

2. You can do modellings with your presence-only data

Recently, I got introduced to occupancy modeling during South Asian Confernce on Small Mammals organized by Small Mammals Conservation and Research Foundation. Dr. Michael Cove was our instructor and he did a great job. I think I can at least understand papers on occupancy now! 🙂

What has all this to do with a notebook and recording everything? Well, I will tell you. There are different ways to model species distribution. You can use presence only data that you have recorded in your numerous trips around and have safe in your notebook. Maxent can be run with these data and you can get your species distribution model. Voila.

How cool is that!

I am planning to run Maxent for my birds that I have recorded from my travels around Nepal and see if there are some interesting distributions that one can not infer from just recording. When I realised this, I felt upset a little as I have lost a notebook where I had kept my records of birds for number of districts. Now, I am mourning its loss.

3. Notekeeping sharpens your observational skills

When you take notes, you are actually observing things. The shape of the scat, the number of digits in the pugmark, habitat that you find the signs of widlife in, and many more. With these observation, unconsciously, you are forcing yourself to look at the details. As you go on with this, you start looking at things quite differently. If you go back to these notes once in a while to figure out what the species might be, its even better because then you start noticing the difference between signs of wildlife. Canids have clawmarks. Felids don’t. You can see five digits in Common Palm Civet but only four in Large Indian Civet. Substrate can make a big difference.

4. You cannot always take photographs

I dont have big telephoto lens. Birds that I see through binoculars but don’t identify at the instant might be gone if I dont record them. Usually I do this with my bad sketch. In these sketches, I try my best to recall the shape and prominent colors. Its not as good as a photograph but atleast I have something that I can later use to identify the species.

5. There are too many things to remember

Have you ever asked someone about something? If you have then you might remember some important things that he/she might have said. But do you remember all? I don’t. Usually, I think I have got it all. But it is never the case. There is too many information that my brains will just let go. It only gets the best or the most important piece of information. So, if I don’t write it down, I am doomed to forget all that information. I don’t know about you but I certainly need to note it down.

These are all the reasons why you should keep a notebook to record everything. I am pretty sure I had some other very good reasons for keeping notebook but I don’t remember them now. Wish I had written it down on my notebook.

So, keep a notebook. Record everything you can. And keep it SAFE!

Who knows, you might be recording something unique.