Reddit reviews Tom Brown's Field Guide to Nature Observation and Tracking
We found 8 Reddit comments about Tom Brown's Field Guide to Nature Observation and Tracking. Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.
FG: NATURE OBSERVATION & TRACK
This line plays in my head as more and more lanes appear on the road and the circuitboard-esque city skyline looms closer. I know I have at least another week of being someone's code-monkey...
What I've found helps is exercising, regular meditation, playing rec league sports outside, playing with cats, sitting in a park and watching animals/listening to the wind in the trees. This book has also helped me cultivate (at least a little bit) that sense of wonder even in everyday life. There is nature to be found everywhere.
not a wildlife photographer, but long time hunter. IMO, far and away the best book out there about tracking is this one, by tom brown. the best book I've ever read about sneaking around is fred asbell's book on the subject, but that is probably too hyper specific for your needs. in general, the secrets to getting close to animals are to use small movements and to break up your outline. Camouflage clothing is a possibility but most animals can be fooled by any sort of open pattern - a flannel shirt with light and dark patches is as effective as camo, for example.
HOWEVER, the better thing to do is to learn as much as you can about the habits and habitats of your quarry. A great source for this kind of info for birds is this site from the Cornell Ornithology Lab.
hope that helps.
This one.
Here's a book by the instructor that covers some of the awareness exercises we were doing.
Oh man... that kind of tracking takes a looooong time to get any good at, and is honestly beyond the reach of most sane people. At least, being able to do it in a timely fashion. Not to mention, if your friend has a paintball gun and is hidden somewhere in the woods... blundering around looking for his tracks is a really good way to get your ass shot.
If you really want to get the drop on him, read up on still hunting and learn how to really keep your eyes and ears open. Keep still more often than you move, and learn how to read good cover in the landscape. Especially this: keep still, keep low, and look for movement.
Deer know what's up: if they sense danger, they freeze in place and go on high-alert. Moving things are easy to see, still things are not. Don't run around like Rambo moving from tree to tree if you plan on sneaking around at all (although honestly, if you're playing around with paintball guns it will rapidly devolve into this).
If you want to pursue tracking, read these books for starters:
I've read "What the Robin Knows" by this author, it is some really amazing work.
Since reading that book I've spent a long time studying nature and observing, it was one of a few things that came together and really changed my life quite profoundly, especially in regards to listening to nature.
I got that book together with this one. And while this one here is kind of hyped and 'mythologized' it introduces some really helpful concepts for how to move and observe in a natural environment to where you see so much more.
To be honest I never fully went as far into the 'listening to bird language' thing as I originally intended to when I first read this book. I practiced it a lot for about 2 months at first, and the one thing I identified was that the house sparrows in my yard had a specific vocalization which meant "Look out, Incoming Hawk!". It's a quick "Cheep CHEEP!" with a bit of urgency, then all the birds will dive into cover, and if you look up, sure enough, there will be a hawk overhead.
I realized that the yards in my backyard area was like an interconnected multispecies cooperative network, all devoted to warning each other of incoming hawks, which was a near daily occurrence. On a few occasions I'd see a hawk flying overhead from the front window, and then run out into the backyard to find it in a tree with one of the birds clutched in its claw.
All fascinating stuff to observe. I could go on for hours about this sort of thing.
Sure! I started out with "Tom Brown's Field Guide to Nature Observation and Tracking". He's one of the more well-known names in tracking, but also a little controversial -- he makes some claims that sound pretty outlandish and his whole background story sounds like a myth.
But overall it's a really good book! It was a good first step, and it got me to start paying attention to what was around me. From there I've spent years practicing. When I'm hiking, I have one eye in front of me and one eye on the ground, trying to spot subtle little things even in really challenging terrain (like pine needles!). Any time I come across something interesting, animal or human, I stop and take a closer look. (I totally love trail poo too.) I also make it a game to try to count the number of people that might be ahead of me on the trail and their gender -- how many different tracks there are, what size they are, how recent they are, how many go out and come back vs. just going out. It's sort of become second nature now.
When I head out on a trail and then come back, I try to find my own prints and pay attention to how they change in the conditions: how long does it take mud to try, bits of snow to melt, plants to return to their original position. And I totally blew it with this on Thursday when hiking with a friend! We crossed some snow on the way out, and on the way back I wasn't positive we were on the correct fork of the trail because I didn't see recent tracks in the snow. My buddy and I spent a few minutes debating it and taking a closer look, and it turned out that they had melted way faster than I was expecting in those conditions -- they were there, but they looked like they were days old, not hours.
I don't have any certifications or professional training at it, although I'd like to, but I recently joined my county's search and rescue team and it looks like I'm decent enough to join their tracking team. I'll find out on Tuesday evening!
No idea on reddits but iv had a few books you could look into
http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/d/B00C6PAG4W/ref=mp_s_a_1_13?qid=1421873213&sr=8-13&pi=AC_SX110_SY165
http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/d/0425099660/ref=mp_s_a_1_2?qid=1421873303&sr=8-2&pi=AC_SY200_QL40&dpPl=1&dpID=51eNZxuqYwL&ref=plSrch
Ah...no worries. Thought that was your website--my bad. The only websites I know and I have not done much searching online is [this one](https://outdooraction.princeton.edu/nature/guide-animal-tracking] as some of that info is common to the coursework I did at TBJr's school for a long time. Yeah you can get very in depth in tracks and tracking...very in-depth. Besides identifying an animal, you can determine a lot of things more..like direction, gender, what was it doing(e.g. stalking, hunting etc), general health, size and weight, when was the track made/how old the track is, why was the track made (distraction etc) even down to some really fine tuned details such as injuries etc. It can all tie in to the surroundings. It's really cool stuff..even when you don't have perfectly imprinted tracks in mud to follow or analyze--there are ways to see tracks thru grasses and harder terrain etc and still learn a lot and tracks come in all sizes to be seen from big animals down to birds, mice and voles. Generally for tracking when out on your own making Tracking sticks can help.....and so can various pattern tracking and team tracking skills too.. There is a whole science/art to tracking animals...as well as people..like when doing SAR. People, like Animals, have habits, gaits, patterns they follow..things they do and you can learn to read a lot in a track...it can get really in depth like you can't imagine. Great fun..
Check out this book if you want to read up on things and learn more.. I learned from Tom and at his school back in the 80's/90's and after 8-10 years there I went from there on my own.. This site also has a pretty good book/field guide and a few videos as well you may like. Like I said - being in a city lately has kept my dirt time down to a pathetic minimum..and usually when you find some people talking about or interested in tracking its rare.. :)