Little update: I found those books! Judy Nayer/Grace Goldberg 1992
Just look at those! I had reptiles, fish and night animals and jungle. I will just post links as forum doesn’t let me to upload them.
https://sun9-21.userapi.com/c856032/v856032231/1ec77b/VtwH0nKXCxo.jpg
https://sun9-23.userapi.com/c855328/v855328231/1f7dde/9c1ofRsidb4.jpg
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Well, my dad is a excersize fanatic. We were always on a hike in the mountains somewhere. It was really beautiful and may have been the spark, but I think the real thing was the book “My Side of the Mountain”. I wanted to go live in the woods just like Sam; he was like my role model. After that, I couldn’t get enough nature!
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Maybe Beavers, Cubs, and Camping as a kid. Eventually spent a lot of time exploring back roads and stuff by my teenage years, more just to kill time and go calm my nerves or whatever, somewhere peaceful. Eventually spent so much time and gas money out there I started to feel like it was a waste, and my appreciation of nature isn’t helping it.
So I eventually decided to spend most of my spare time actually learning what’s going on out there, and how everything works, and maybe helping other people learn too. I kinda post what I learn on social media now to slightly drown out the other craziness going on in the world. Last fall I started on here and it’s exactly what I needed to keep me learning ;)
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I’ve used the pokedex analogy to explain inat myself lol
Having access to lots and lots of nature books as a little kid was definitely my reason. I think these specifically were the biggest culprit
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although looking back now, these books totally misrepresent overall abundance LOL
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Not really a misrepresentation though… It’s like a time-lapse with long exposure setting… great way to depict the potential occupants of a habitat. I kinda look at the bush now as a curtain that is hiding scenes like that behind it! Especially when thinking in terms of what comes out at night… A good case in point is that video shared recently of the log across the creek.
[edit: …and then to think that each of those critters in that picture has senses way beyond our own, and can probably “see” traces of the other animals (scent etc) all over the place! It probably does look that way to them :) ]
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Yeah that’s true I guess. But as a kid going into a natural area for the first time I was definitely disappointed that I didn’t see the entire place bustling with life haha
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Woah! That is so cool!!! You have an awesome mom! Hope you thank her very often. 
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Yeah. I do the same thing with TV. I watch the news for about 5 minutes, then change it to the nature channel. No reason to see the same thing over, it just causes more anxiety. Especially with Covid19.
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I got into nature with my parents. My dad usually works with TPWD and moves a lot so we see a wide variety of wildlife. My mom actually is scared of bugs, reptiles, etc, so when I was little she always had me killing them and cleaning it up because she didn’t want me to be scared. My sisters are interested but scared of bugs, and they love mammals (we have two dogs, and I think they are their favorite animal) and I am in charge of getting things out of the house. I find and buy a lot of nature books and bother my family by telling fun facts very often. (24/7) Also, I started researching the affects of pharmaceutical and over the counter drugs because my mom’s liver was ruined by Tylenol. That got me interested in herbal medicine. I now make my own medicine. :-)
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I had the second one! Translated though, I cut almost all cool animals from it. :D
Found, this one. https://www.exodusbooks.com/images/item-large/41822.jpg
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Just saw this tweet, which refers to birding but is definitely applicable to any kind of naturalizing.
`i saw a weird bird so i googled it and actually found it. i didn’t expect that identifying a bird would feel rewarding but it kind of did. this is how it starts just before people’s lives spiral out of control and they get into birdwatching
— your own personal jesus (@Kappa_Kappa) March 19, 2020
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Short story: David Attenborough
“Longer” story: I found a dead butterfly in the lab I am working in. Took a while to identify it but I managed to do so. Few months later was just out hiking and saw a whole load of little critters roaming around, and thats when I got hooked since I was just fascinated by their shapes, sizes, colors, patterns etc. I had already accumulated a gallery of photos of critters I encounter in my walks in nature before I found iNat too.
Fyi: Here is that “dead butterfly” that “started it all”: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/9063669
Edit: I was a kid when I started watching David Attenborough’s documentaries. Finding that dead butterfly sort of rekindled my “child-like curiosity” for the natural world.
Edit 2: I also noticed many people have cited Dinosaurs as a childhood influence, and I definitely fit that bill too. One of my proudest feelings as a primary school kid is when my teacher told other people “This kid knows a LOT about dinosaurs”
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I also ponder about the same thing. I’m currently pursuing a degree in physics but I have always been interested in the natural world. I was hoping that maybe this love for nature can turn into some “side hustle” job in the future but I’m really not sure. All I know is that at this current point in time I love nature in all its biodiverse glory because if I wasn’t spending time in the lab or writing out complicated physics equations I would be thinking about things like lepidoptera and parasitoid wasps etc etc.
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