Since I previously always looked for snakes and hoped to scare them up with my passage (and then using my ears to detect their movements), I’ve often not focused on stopping and really opening my eyes and ears so I totally agree with that advice.
I also recommend being social and going out with a few people, especially if you have a group experienced with different taxa. More eyes often means turning up more things. Find some local iNatters!
Doing some research (something I need to do more of) and learning a) what might occur in an area and b) what kind of microhabitats they prefer is helpful, since you’ll have some search images in your mind.
Maybe this is cheating, but with insects it’s also helpful to bring a small white plastic bowl, hold it under a branch or some brush and gently shake the plant. All kind of amazing things you’d never find otherwise will be visible in the bowl.
My first suggestion was going to be “shake a tree”, exactly as you describe … See what drops out, and then go to a similar tree and look for them in-situ/undisturbed…
Вспоминаю летнюю практику по зоологии беспозвоночных.
Вывели студентов на луг с достаточно высокой травой (приблизительно по пояс), дали в руки сачки для ловли бабочек и сказали пройти 20 шагов, размахивая сачком наподобие косы. Многих впечатлило количество и разнообразие оказавшихся в сачках насекомых и паукообразных.
Hah, it reminds me of story I read in s book where it was described how a scientist was working at nights and was wearing full white clothes to spot ticks, locals seriously thought it was a ghost.)
I observe plants, orchids if I can find them. “Slow as you go” is my method. Knowing habbit and host soil/food source is my other. Time of year/weather are factors too. Biggest tip for finding things, luck :-)
Research it thoroughly, it’s food plants, it’s predators, everything. Then look in iNat for observations of it, so you get a familiarity for where it is found. Visit similar locations/habitats and search them thoroughly, perhaps even enlisting friends or family members (children are great, but short attention spans, wife not so great, zero attention span [when it comes to bugs]). Purchase of some simple but expensive tools will be required, such as sweep nets and malaise traps, and if you can do night visits with a UV light, even better. You do this for about 6 months, extending well outside the range of dates of the observations in iNat. The final step is to go somewhere alone, that you least would be likely to find them, and without your camera. It will land on your pocket that has your phone, so you can’t even get your phone out without scaring it off. Works every time.
I’ll step off trail a little and do a slow gaze around me every so often. One of two things happens, I’ll find something cool or somebody asks me if I’ve lost something. :) I like looking up at tree leaves in the sunlight–I can catch the shadows of beetles and moths that way. In a light but steady rain, winged things get temporarily grounded. Old logs are great for all kinds of critters. Visiting garden centers in the summers is fun for finding butterflies as well as plants (the plants are for the garden–not iNat). I’ve stopped grumbling (mostly) about having to get off a trail for a cyclist. I find things I wouldn’t have seen waiting for a bike to go by.
For things that move, I use “wide-angle” vision - stand back and try to observe as much of the scene as possible without focusing on any one thing. This makes the motion of small creatures very noticeable.
Sometimes I’ll sit down in one spot and make a game of trying to document every single species within view, which makes me notice a lot of things I might have otherwise overlooked.
And finally, research! I look at my area and see what species other people have found, and then try to go find them myself. I’ve discovered many cool organisms that I have walked by without noticing for years that way.
The best tip is to get your eyes accustomed to noticing ever-so-slight changes in shape, outline and colour when looking for very small organisms. This is especially helpful when searching for wildflowers
Time in the field trains the brain… I think, anyway. I feel like I can notice a fall-off in observation acuity of discerning the hard to spot critters the longer I’m away from the field. Frequent practice observing really helps imho.
To the original post, tho, I wonder if, for certain species (as suggested) there are particular visual cues. For me, when looking at asters with yellow disk flowers, I look for depressions that cross more than one floret - my eyes will then come to focus on the yellow beetle there
One thing with camo’d salticids that helps is to use a torch… You’ve heard of the phrase “sunglasses at night”? Well, I use my torch during the day! Shining it across a rock, tree-trunk or flower (like the asters) often shows up shadows that don’t grow or shrink as expected, and the brain straight away goes into “hullo, what is that?” mode.
