On counting

I started keeping species tallies two years ago because a friend told me it would make me more observant. She was right. The count itself is unimportant; the habit of noticing what you don’t normally notice because you’re forced to write it down is what matters. I’m at 214 species logged in the journal this year, and 214 is less interesting than the fact that I can tell you exactly where and when I picked up each of them.