*Field Notes Journal- is a personal computational natural history and data-publishing project built around long-term observation, ecological analysis, and structured reporting.
The project combines field observation, environmental recording, computational analysis, and publishing workflows to explore how patterns emerge through the steady accumulation of records over time.
The site is published via GitHub Pages at:
The repository contains:
- The source for the website
- Analysis and report-generation scripts
- Structured datasets
- Generated visualisations and reports
- Links to the open-source tools used to collect and analyse observations
The reports and datasets on the site are derived from several long-running observation projects.
Long-term natural history observations including:
- Wildlife sightings
- Seasonal occurrence analysis
- Abundance and trend reports
- Annual and monthly summaries
- Species richness analysis
- Ecological visualisations and heatmaps
The project increasingly focuses not simply on recording observations, but on analysing seasonal ecological structure and long-term patterns across species and communities.
The site includes a growing body of computational ecology work based around ODE-driven seasonal wildlife models.
These models are used to explore and classify patterns such as:
- Seasonal emergence and decline
- Eesident detectability variation
- Winter visitor behaviour
- Migration timing
- Phenological overlap
- Community-level seasonal structure
The modelling workflow includes:
- Parameter fitting
- Rule-based ecological classification
- Species similarity analysis
- Hierarchical clustering
- Ecological neighbourhood and assemblage analysis
The project includes a developing set of tools and workflows for analysing bat recordings and behavioural acoustic structure.
This work includes:
- Spectrogram analysis
- Pulse detection
- Feeding buzz identification
- Behavioural phase analysis
- Time-expansion and heterodyne workflows
- Ecological timing analysis
Associated tools and datasets are published as part of the wider Field Notes Journal project.
A parallel strand of the project explores ecological computation on constrained handheld devices, particularly the TI-84 Plus CE-T Python calculator.
This includes portable implementations of:
- Seasonal ecology models
- Behavioural timing analysis
- Bat pulse analysis workflows
- Ecological visualisation tools
The aim is to explore lightweight, interpretable computational tools for field-oriented ecological analysis.
Observational microscopy using a restored 1912 Leitz microscope, documenting specimens through written observations, photomicrography, and structured investigative series.
The microscopy work combines historical optical instruments with modern digital publication workflows.
Environmental monitoring using a Raspberry Pi–based weather station recording local atmospheric conditions and long-term environmental trends.
Reports across the site include:
- Charts and visual summaries
- Ecological calendars
- Trend analysis
- Downloadable datasets
- Structured observation reports
- Seasonal species directories
- Generated booklets and PDFs
Visualisations are generated directly from the underlying datasets and analytical workflows.
The tools used to collect, organise, and analyse these records are available as open source and can be adapted for similar projects.
| Tool | Description |
|---|---|
| Nature Recorder | Logging wildlife sightings and building long-term records |
| ODE Solver | Tool for exploring ODE models and visualising their behaviour over time |
| Spectrogram Viewer | Command-line tool for analysing bat recordings and call structure |
| Plate Library | Catalogue of photomicrographic plates and investigations |
| Flight Recorder | Capture and analysis of aircraft observations |
| ADS-B BaseStation Reader | ADS-B tracking tool for live aircraft monitoring |
| Raspberry Pi Weather Station | Environmental monitoring system for local weather data |
Field Notes Journal is built around long-term observation and the gradual accumulation of records over time.
The aim is not only to record observations, but to organise them into structured datasets and analytical workflows that allow ecological patterns, seasonal structure, and behavioural relationships to emerge through sustained observation.
The project sits at the intersection of:
- Field observation
- Computational natural history
- Ecological modelling
- Environmental recording
- Analytical tooling
- Long-form digital publishing
- Code in this repository is licensed under the MIT License
- External tools are licensed according to their respective repositories
- Content (text, images, datasets) is licensed under CC BY 4.0
See LICENSE and LICENSE-CONTENT.md for details.