Rocket stares at his notebook. "My bird drawing looks like a potato with legs."
Raven laughs kindly. "Mine did too. A field sketch is not art. It is a note."
She adds an arrow to her own sketch and writes "stripe here".
Nova hovers over the page. "Draw what you noticed, not what you remember," she says. "Arrows and labels do the rest."
A field sketch is a quick drawing made while you look at something.
It does not need to be pretty. It needs to be useful.
Draw the basic shape first. Then add the details you noticed.
Use arrows and labels. "Stripe here" or "long tail" says more than a careful drawing.
Add a size note. "About as long as my hand" helps later.
Spend two or three minutes, not twenty. The animal may leave!
Here is a full entry, the kind you will write tomorrow.
Notice that the sketch has labels, and the inference is a question.
| Line | Entry |
|---|---|
| Date | May 5 |
| Weather | Sunny and warm, no wind |
| Place | Back step by the big bush |
| What I saw | One small brown bird with a dark stripe on its head. It hopped, then pecked at the dirt. Sketch below. |
| What I wonder | Is it the same bird I saw yesterday? Why does it peck the dirt? |
| Week check | True or false? |
|---|---|
| "The bird pecked the dirt" is an observation. | ? |
| "The bird is hungry" is an observation. | ? |
| A sit spot is a place you visit again and again. | ? |
| You should taste things to identify them. | ? |
| Every entry starts with the date. | ? |
You are a notebook naturalist now! Tomorrow is Explorer Day: a fifteen-minute sit spot entry.