Question: What do bear scat, dragonflies, wooly aphids, and lichen have in common?
Answer: They are all featured in a book just published by the Montana Natural History Center. The book, titled Field Notes, is a collection of selected essays written for Montana Public Radio’s program of the same name.
Former station manager Terry Conrad remembers:
Terry Conrad: They came to us 25 years ago — primarily Jennifer Dolese — and proposed the idea of having a nature program on, on a regular basis.
CN: Conrad said yes, and became the first producer of “Field Notes.”
TC: They brought a cassette tape of loons, and they said, “Can you incorporate this into a theme.” And fortunately I was able to find a piece of music [cue "Field Notes" music with loons]— and I cannot for the life of me remember who that guitarist is or what the piece of music is, but it’s just a perfect companion to the loons.
CN: Back in 1991, “Field Notes,” the radio program, was one of the first educational outreach efforts of the newly-formed Montana Natural History Center. Of the nearly 900 radio scripts that have been produced to-date, 134 are in the book. Caroline Kurtz pulled this collection together. She also coordinated the radio program for 12 years, working with all types of people.
Caroline Kurtz: The people who contributed field notes were, and are, from all walks of life. In addition to the staff and associates of the Nature Center, people in the community: teachers and students and practicing scientists, but also doctors, lawyers, business people—anybody who had the occasion to be struck by something outside and want to write about it.
CN: Shortly before Terry Conrad retired, Beth Anne Austein took over as producer of “Field Notes,” a role that has included coaching first-time readers in the art of radio.
Beth Anne Austein: I guess when people perhaps were fairly new readers, who hadn’t done a lot of reading out loud, I have certainly tried to coach a little bit. The idea here is that you’re not reading a script—well, you are reading a script—but pretend that you’ re telling a story to somebody at a kitchen table.”
CN: The secret to a good field note is simplicity. In this snippet, Jon Sprague — a graduate student in UM’s Organismal Biology and Ecology program at the time — delivered a story that likely changed many perspectives about caterpillars.
Jon Sprague: Last fall, on a crowded sidewalk, I nearly stepped on a huge, ugly, disregarded caterpillar. The number of pedestrians on the sidewalk guaranteed it a quick death by squishing, so I picked it up. It was even uglier up close.
CN: But, Sprague recognized a Swallow-tail butterfly in that ugly caterpillar. He created a winter refuge for it and his story ended well.
JS: That was five months ago. It is early spring now. And soon it will be warm and flowers will dot the hills. If everything has gone right, brown and ugly will soon be yellow and gorgeous—a welcome sight after a long, cold winter.
CN: And, as Austein explains, Sprague’s writing style makes his story educational and easy to understand.
BA: Jon writes using simple words and explains very well with those words. He says, “winter is hard on animals for two simple reasons: it’s cold and there’s not a lot of food.” He’s not using jargon.
CN: The late evolutionary biologist Camille Barr used one of her jargon-free field notes to teach us about other stuff found on the ground.
Camille Barr: Poo is the “Killroy-was-here” tag of any animal. And not only is scat widely accessible — after all, everyone poos — but observing them is also non-invasive. We can learn about our favorite species without coming anywhere near a net, a gun or a dart, and can avoid jangling the nerves of human-shy animals.
CN: The scat in Camille Barr’s story was dropped by a bear and included bits of white fur.
CB: I still have no idea where that white fur came from, but if any of my neighbors are wondering where Fluffy went, well, now you know.
CN: The essays included in the book version of “Field Notes” are accessible, entertaining, and educational.
Field Notes, the book, is available from the Natural History Center and Fact & Fiction bookstores in Missoula.
