Hello Nature Journaling friends!
This month is a choose-your-own-adventure gathering that will depend on the weather and what your preferences are for the evening. (Read: I’m feeling indecisive this month. Your ideas more than welcome!)
February Gathering Details
Date: Wednesday, February 4, 2026
Time: 5:30 – 7:30 pm
Location: The Valley Library/Girls Club
Possible Nature Journaling Explorations
- If the weather cooperates and you’re feeling up for an outdoor adventure, we will have a starry sky to explore. I got a new spotting scope for the holidays, and I’m looking for excuses to try it out on the night sky. (Tips on getting it set up and oriented correctly are more than welcome.) The moon will be bright (waxing crescent) on February 4, but won’t rise until 8:47 pm, so we should have a relatively dark sky so we can look at stars together. I’m not a night-sky expert, but an astronomer/Pluto-researcher friend recommended the app, Stellarium (iOS / Android / web).
- Use a UV flashlight (I have one) to explore a little closer to home for scorpions or other fun fluorescents, including some fungi and insects, and even a few mammals and (young) birds.
- One of the times that we were visiting the Girl’s Club after sunset, we noticed a few bats swinging around, presumably to take advantage of the insects drawn to the lights around the outside of the building. This might be an interesting system to explore in our journals as well.
- Bring something to explore indoors
- Claire dissected a flower during last month’s cyanotype printing exploration, and found some cool structures within.
- House plants
- Some natural item that you collect prior to the event
- (Note: we aren’t allowed to bring food items into the library)
What to Bring
- Something to explore in your journal: Since this will be a mostly indoor event, you may wish to bring something to work on in your nature journal/sketch book. Pictures are fine, though something 3D always leaves more room for discovery and questions.
- Something to write with and on. Something to add some color with can also be fun. I’ll try to have some extra stuff if you forget, but a bit of printer paper and a pen or pencil is also just fine! The goal here is to slow down and observe the natural world around us, and put our insights and questions on paper.
- Exploration Gear/Ideas.
- Your Curiosity and Wonder. The last thing on the list, but the most important.