Book contents
- Curious About Nature
- Ecology, Biodiversity and Conservation
- Curious About Nature
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Preface
- Foreword
- Part I Getting Curious About Nature
- Part II Essays: Inspiring Fieldwork
- 6 Understanding the Decline of Hen Harriers on Orkney
- 7 Rocky Shores Are Not Just for the Able-Bodied
- 8 Life, Love and Longing to Survive
- 9 Bringing Palaeoecology Alive
- 10 Expedition Botany/Hobby Botany
- 11 The Illisarvik Drained-Lake Field Experiment: a Legacy of J. Ross Mackay
- 12 In Praise of Meteorology Field Courses
- 13 Time, Place and Circumstance
- 14 Sampling Fish Diversity along a Submarine Mountain Chain
- 15 Place and Placefulness
- 16 Ripples across the Pond
- 17 Fieldwork, Field-Friends and the Paradox of Absence
- 18 Ornithological Fieldwork: Essential and Enjoyable
- 19 Exploration Science on the Shore of the Arctic Ocean: a Personal Experience
- 20 Only Connect – and Make Records
- 21 Studying Patterned Bogs
- 22 Mapping the Rise of the Animals: Cambrian Bodies in the Sirius Pass, North Greenland
- 23 Evolution in the Cellar: Live-Trapping Wild House Mice in the Italian Alps
- 24 Reflections on ‘Babooning’
- 25 Bogs, Birds and Bones: Interdisciplinary Fieldwork on the Isle of Rum National Nature Reserve
- 26 Exploring World(s) Down Under
- 27 Experiments by Nature: Strength in Realism
- 28 Big Problems – Small Animals
- 29 Soil Survey: a Field-Based Science
- 30 A Travelling Ethnography of Urban Technologies
- 31 My Date with the Devil
- 32 Peregrinations through the Heathlands and Moorlands of Britain: an Applied Plant Ecologist’s Tale
- 33 The Maimai Catchment New Zealand
- 34 ‘Writing in the Field’: the Importance of a Local Patch
- 35 Looking but Not Seeing: How Sketching in the Field Improves Observational Skills in Science
- 36 From Rum to Recording Forest Soils via the Soil Survey of Scotland: a Life of Fieldwork
- 37 In Praise of Bat Detectors
- 38 In Search of Tawny Frogmouths
- 39 Don’t Just Sit There Reading …
- 40 Fieldwork in the Australian Bush: If It Doesn’t Kill You, It’ll Convert You
- 41 Field Studies of Behaviour and Life-Changing Events
- 42 Sediment, Wind Turbines and Rhinos: Ah, the Life of a Geographer!
- 43 Conservation Science: the Need for a New Paradigm Founded on Robust Field Evidence
- 44 The Worst Journey in the World
- 45 Field-less Fieldwork in Archaeology’s Digital Age
- 46 Reflections on a Career with the Field Studies Council
- 47 My Love Affair with Rocks That Fizz
- 48 In the Footsteps of John Wesley Powell: Restoring the Sand Bars in the Grand Canyon
- 49 Connecting the Next Generation to Their World
- 50 Beyond the Curriculum: Wider Conceptions of Learning in the Field
- Part III Reflections and Where Next for Field Studies
- Contributing Author Biographies
- Index
- References
13 - Time, Place and Circumstance
from Part II - Essays: Inspiring Fieldwork
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 February 2020
By
Book contents
- Curious About Nature
- Ecology, Biodiversity and Conservation
- Curious About Nature
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Preface
- Foreword
- Part I Getting Curious About Nature
- Part II Essays: Inspiring Fieldwork
- 6 Understanding the Decline of Hen Harriers on Orkney
- 7 Rocky Shores Are Not Just for the Able-Bodied
- 8 Life, Love and Longing to Survive
- 9 Bringing Palaeoecology Alive
- 10 Expedition Botany/Hobby Botany
- 11 The Illisarvik Drained-Lake Field Experiment: a Legacy of J. Ross Mackay
- 12 In Praise of Meteorology Field Courses
- 13 Time, Place and Circumstance
- 14 Sampling Fish Diversity along a Submarine Mountain Chain
- 15 Place and Placefulness
- 16 Ripples across the Pond
- 17 Fieldwork, Field-Friends and the Paradox of Absence
- 18 Ornithological Fieldwork: Essential and Enjoyable
- 19 Exploration Science on the Shore of the Arctic Ocean: a Personal Experience
- 20 Only Connect – and Make Records
- 21 Studying Patterned Bogs
- 22 Mapping the Rise of the Animals: Cambrian Bodies in the Sirius Pass, North Greenland
- 23 Evolution in the Cellar: Live-Trapping Wild House Mice in the Italian Alps
- 24 Reflections on ‘Babooning’
- 25 Bogs, Birds and Bones: Interdisciplinary Fieldwork on the Isle of Rum National Nature Reserve
- 26 Exploring World(s) Down Under
- 27 Experiments by Nature: Strength in Realism
- 28 Big Problems – Small Animals
- 29 Soil Survey: a Field-Based Science
- 30 A Travelling Ethnography of Urban Technologies
- 31 My Date with the Devil
- 32 Peregrinations through the Heathlands and Moorlands of Britain: an Applied Plant Ecologist’s Tale
- 33 The Maimai Catchment New Zealand
- 34 ‘Writing in the Field’: the Importance of a Local Patch
- 35 Looking but Not Seeing: How Sketching in the Field Improves Observational Skills in Science
- 36 From Rum to Recording Forest Soils via the Soil Survey of Scotland: a Life of Fieldwork
- 37 In Praise of Bat Detectors
- 38 In Search of Tawny Frogmouths
- 39 Don’t Just Sit There Reading …
- 40 Fieldwork in the Australian Bush: If It Doesn’t Kill You, It’ll Convert You
- 41 Field Studies of Behaviour and Life-Changing Events
- 42 Sediment, Wind Turbines and Rhinos: Ah, the Life of a Geographer!
- 43 Conservation Science: the Need for a New Paradigm Founded on Robust Field Evidence
- 44 The Worst Journey in the World
- 45 Field-less Fieldwork in Archaeology’s Digital Age
- 46 Reflections on a Career with the Field Studies Council
- 47 My Love Affair with Rocks That Fizz
- 48 In the Footsteps of John Wesley Powell: Restoring the Sand Bars in the Grand Canyon
- 49 Connecting the Next Generation to Their World
- 50 Beyond the Curriculum: Wider Conceptions of Learning in the Field
- Part III Reflections and Where Next for Field Studies
- Contributing Author Biographies
- Index
- References
Summary
What sort of scientist am I? Peter Gould (1985, p. 320) encouraged us to recognise the particular historical situation in which we find ourselves, ‘to acknowledge the trap of one’s own time and place and circumstance’. For me, being born on the Mendips and brought up in the south-western English county of Somerset provided the time and place; circumstance came from a charismatic schoolteacher, Jim Hanwell. Once I fell under Jim’s spell, I never wanted to study anything but geography.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Curious about NatureA Passion for Fieldwork, pp. 165 - 168Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2020
References
De la Beche, H.T. (1846). On the Formation of the Rocks of South Wales and South Western England. Memoirs of the Geological Survey of Great Britain, Volume 1.1. Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, London.Google Scholar
British Geological Survey (2017). Geological structure of the Mendips. See www.bgs.ac.uk/mendips/geology/Geological_Structure.htm (accessed 2017).Google Scholar