Woodlife Trails

It’s some time since I wrote about journals and note-taking.

This year I’ve decided to experiment in the way I keep my wildlife and bushcraft notes. Previously, I’ve kept all notes in a small hard back Paperblanks journal. I’ve used various versions of these notebooks for years going back to 1988 and have a nice looking collection. During (rare) spare moments, I like to read what I was doing or what the weather was like on exactly the same week in different years.

Since starting an on-line journal like this blog, I found that I was repeating a lot of information, which has turned out to be quite time consuming. Also, being quite organised, I wasn’t happy with searching through the hard copy journal to find the information I wanted because the diary, wildlife observations, kit lists and other information were scattered about the notebook.

This year, I’m going to keep a different type of journal in the form of a Filofax type ring binder. I can section off different areas for wildlife and bushcraft, maintain the actual journal and insert sketches and maps where I like. The problem is that the Filofax binder, although an ideal size for making notes and drawings, is a little too big to carry about as a matter of course during excursions. So I’ve decided to still maintain a small field notebook for notes, sketches and quick observations in the field. I intend to transfer these field notes to the Filofax (I can just punch a couple of holes in the paper and slot it in) and add any sketches or additional information, thus keeping the Filfax as a main journal at home.

I tend to have a reasonably good memory for events in the field, which is prompted by the photos I bring back. A sort of photo journal will be maintained in this blog.

I will probably miss having a nice hard backed book as a wildlife and bushcraft journal, but we’ll see how it goes.

Pablo.