My father was a botanist, a plant taxonomist. The summer before last it occurred to me that I had largely forgotten much that I had learned from him about plant species. I didn't like to think this thought so I started drawing individual plant species. I had some 5 X 7 aquabord panels so I used those, drew on them with pen and ink and added watercolour. You can lift paint quite readily from aquabord so I started doing that. Here are two of those early drawings.

I enjoyed doing these drawings. The process was meditative and it was really satisfying to learn or relearn plant species. I started a project book where I kept notes about each species.

Soon, I started drawing insects I found on the plants. Friends started bring me small creatures they found, which had met untimely ends.

I just kept on making these drawings in a vague sort of way, no plan in mind, whenever time presented. Before too long there were 30, then 40 drawings. And then we went to New York to see the opera. While there we went to the American Museum of Natural History and saw the wonderful, wonderful Biodiversity display there. And everything shifted. Suddenly recording and naming species took on a whole new significance.

One thing about pandemics is that they seem to allow us time to dig more deeply. I've been reading and watching videos about citizen science. I hadn't realized the extent to which citizen science has informed research projects on a wide range of topics. Of course I knew about the project called Journey North, which tracks the migration of monarch butterflies and also of other species, such as baltimore orioles, barn swallows, songbirds or others. Observers also report leaf-out and ice-out in their local area.

I have been a volunteer citizen scientist myself this year. I participated in a Road Salt Monitoring project with the Ottawa Riverkeeper. We sampled the water in several creeks, downstream from major arteries after precipitation events. The painting above is of Pinecrest Creek, the day we went to consider which creeks to monitor. I actually monitored Graham Creek but that day at Pinecrest Creek was a good day! This was the first year of salt testing and the results were interesting. They can be found at...