Chasing butterflies

I was that little girl who stalked butterflies and dragonflies in our backyard. I was guilty of keeping them in a jar until they die. As an adult, this is something I would not particularly enjoy doing anymore. My compassion for living things outweighs more than my curiosity. Back to those bugs that I tortured for my so-called search of scientific knowledge, I would lay them flat and pin them on their wings for anatomical observations. I would browse through my Groliers encyclopedia to match the species I found from those in the book.

Squash beetles

I was that little girl who spent a lot of time in bushes hunting for ladybugs that stained my fingers yellow. There were also those particular bugs that thrived on squash and watermelon leaves just like the ladybugs I. played with. I had the same curiosity with the large, black bees that frequented the tuba-tuba plant that we had.

Frog in a jar

I was that little girl who trapped a live frog inside a jar filled with water thinking the water would preserve it, only to find out that it started rotting when the water became too dark like anchovies brine. I thought formaldehyde and water were one and the same. I left the jar under the heat of the sun for months. I didn't really know what I was thinking - obviously. I came back and out of blatant curiosity, I decided to smash the glass jar onto a rock. I might have made something poisonous because the broken jar reeked of chemical smell spreading from the yard all the way to our house. The smell was too strong that it took like 20 minutes for the entire smell to dissipate.

Nature Lovers Club

I was that little girl who got fascinated with worms, bugs, and insects. I once created a club with my childhood friends that I named Nature Lovers Club. Part of our advocacy was to cultivate our own vegetable garden that we can then sell to our parents. In this way, we could fund our club endeavors. I remember using those packet seedlings to grow vegetables. Cows grazed in our neighborhood at that time. I collected cow manure to fertilize the soil in our club's garden which we had in our backyard. I was able to grow string beans, okra, mung beans, tomatoes, and eggplant.

A curiosity that was never answered

I do not only have an interest in fauna but with plants as well. I remember when I was about ten years old, I was so psyched to discover this single fruit I picked near a ravine inside the forest of my mom's hometown in Bohol. It was nothing that I have ever seen before. The texture and color looked like a Fuji apple but more rounded. I was so amazed that I was holding on to that fruit all the way back to my grandparents' house. Just as we arrived, the fruit suddenly exploded exposing black seeds that were shaped like that of the star apple, that if my memory didn't fail me. I never really know up to now what fruit that was. Maybe it was a granada fruit? Or a pomegranate? Or something else that may be undiscovered.

Social network for nature lovers and scientists

So that brings me here all the way to discuss this platform that I'm very excited about. This brings me back to my fascination with wildlife when I was a kid. It never really went away but knowing that I can be part of a community for this interest is something exciting to me.

I found out about Project Noah, a tool that nature lovers can use to explore and document local wildlife when National Geographic’s Facebook page featured an Island Flying Fox from the Philippines owned by a Filipino Project Noah member tkrizler. Project Noah is a common technology platform that research groups can use to harness the power of citizen scientists everywhere.

So I went over photos I’ve taken in the past years, checking for snapshots of animals and plants, that a few I couldn’t name or identify. The good thing about Project Noah is that other members can help ID your snapshots.

I just joined today, and I managed to post 6 wildlife spottings I made in the past. A couple of them were already ID’d by other users a few hours after I posted them.

I really enjoyed participating in this project. I’m now looking forward to taking snapshots of my future findings. If you love organisms, the floral and fauna, join Project Noah now!

Follow me in Project Noah by clicking here.