The lost art of reading nature's signs : use outdoor clues to find your way, predict the weather, locate water, track animals--and other forgotten skills

418 Pages·2015·143.14 MB·English

by  Gooley

“One of the richest, densest, most rewarding books
on nature I have read in a long time . . . its joy in
deduction is infectiously delightful.”
—THE SUNDAY TIMES
WHEN WRITER AND NAVIGATOR TRISTAN GOOLEY JOURNEYS OUTSIDE,
he sees a natural world filled with clues. The roots of a tree indicate the sun’s
direction; the Big Dipper tells the time; a passing butterfly hints at the weather;
a sand dune reveals prevailing wind; the scent of cinnamon
suggests altitude; a budding flower points south. To help you
understand nature as he does, Gooley shares more than With 74
850 tips for forecasting, tracking, and more, gathered photos and
from decades spent walking the landscape around his illustrations
home and around the world. Whether you’re walking in
the country or city, along a coastline, or by night, this is the
ultimate resource on what the land, sun, moon, stars, plants, animals, and clouds
can reveal—if you only know how to look!
“Even the intrepid Bear Grylls could learn a trick or two
from this book.” —The Times (UK)
“Densely packed with information, engagingly

and clearly written.” —Great Outdoors magazine
TRISTAN GOOLEY, author of The Natural Navigator, has
led expeditions on five continents, climbed mountains in
three, and is the only living person to have both flown and
sailed solo across the Atlantic. His more than two decades
of pioneering outdoor experience include research among
tribal peoples in some of the remotest regions on Earth.
$16.95 US NATURE
naturalnavigator.com
THE EXPERIMENT ■ NEW YORK
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The Lost Art of

Reading Nature’s Signs
THEEXPERIMENT
BECAUSEEVERY BOOKISATESTOFNEWIDEAS
also by tristan gooley
The Natural Navigator
The Natural Explorer
How to Connect with Nature
The Lost Art
of Reading
Nature’s Signs
Use Outdoor Clues to
Find Your Way, Predict the Weather,
Locate Water, Track Animals—
and Other Forgotten Skills
TRISTAN GOOLEY
Illustrations by Neil Gower
with editorial contributions by Marc Williams
THEEXPERIMENT
new york
For Sophie, Benedict and Vincent
The Lost Art of Reading Nature’s Signs: Use Outdoor Clues to Find Your Way,
Predict the Weather, Locate Water, Track Animals—and Other Forgotten Skills
Copyright © Tristan Gooley, 2014
Image p.146 top © Shutterstock.com; All other illustrations © Neil Gower
First published in the UK as The Walker’s Guide to Outdoor Clues and Signs by Sceptre, 2014
All rights reserved. Except for brief passages quoted in newspaper, magazine, radio, television,
or online reviews, no portion of this book may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in
any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or
information storage or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
Many of the designations used by manufacturers and sellers to distinguish their products are
claimed as trademarks. Where those designations appear in this book and The Experiment was
aware of a trademark claim, the designations have been capitalized.
The Experiment, LLC
220 East 23rd Street, Suite 301
New York, NY 10010-4674
www.theexperimentpublishing.com
The Experiment’s books are available at special discounts when purchased in bulk for premiums
and sales promotions as well as for fund-raising or educational use. For details, contact us at
[email protected].
Excerpt from What the Robin Knows: How Birds Reveal the Secrets of the Natural World by Jon Young.
Copright © 2012 by Jon Young. Reprinted by permission of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Publishing Company. All rights reserved.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Gooley, Tristan.
The lost art of reading nature’s signs : use outdoor clues to find your way, predict the weather,
locate water, track animals--and other forgotten skills / Tristan Gooley ; illustrations by Neil Gower.
pages cm
“First published in Great Britain in 2014 as The Walker’s Guide to Outdoor Clues and Signs:
Their Meaning and the Art of Making Predictions and Deductions by Sceptre.”
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-61519-241-0 (pbk.) -- ISBN 978-1-61519-242-7 (ebook) 1. Outdoor life--
Handbooks, manuals, etc. 2. Orienteering--Handbooks, manuals, etc. I. Title.
GV200.4.G648 2015
796.5--dc23
2014041221
ISBN 978-1-61519-241-0
Ebook ISBN 978-1-61519-242-7
Cover design by Sarah Smith
Manufactured in the United States of America
Distributed by Workman Publishing Company, Inc.
Distributed simultaneously in Canada by Thomas Allen & Son Ltd.
First printing July 2015
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Contents
A Note to Readers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vii
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ix
1 Getting Started . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
2 Ground . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
3 Trees . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
4 Plants . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
5 Mosses, Algae, Fungi and Lichens . . . . . . 99
6 A Walk with Rocks and Wildflowers . . 109
7 Sky and Weather . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115
8 Stars . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151
9 Sun . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181
10 Moon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 192
11 A Night Walk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 204
12 Animals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 211
13 A Walk with the Dayak—Part I . . . . . 239
14 City, Town and Village . . . . . . . . . . . 256
15 A City Walk with Invisible Snakes . . . 274
16 Coast, Rivers and Lakes . . . . . . . . . . . 281
17 Snow and Sand . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 296
18 A Walk with the Dayak—Part II . . . . 303
19 Rare and Extraordinary . . . . . . . . . . . 325
20 The Breakthrough . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 338
21 Your Invisible Toolbox . . . . . . . . . . . . 341
Appendix I: Distances,
Heights and Angles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 347
Appendices II–IV . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 360
Sources, Notes and Further Reading . . . . . 366
Selected Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 378
Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 382
Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 384
A Note to Readers
I
HAVE SPENT MORE THAN TWO DECADES walking the
woods and towns and countryside and coast near my home and
throughout the rest of England, where I’m from. On my journeys
I’ve collected notes on hundreds of nature’s signs hidden in plain
sight—the sun, moon, stars, sky, plants and animals that, upon clos-
er inspection, often reveal clues to a deeper understanding of the
environment.
A good deal of the things I’ve seen can be found in many places
in the US, but, inevitably, I’ll refer to some plants and animals that
the reader may not be familiar with. Where possible, I’ve enlisted
the help of Marc Williams, an ethnobotanist from North Caroli-
na and someone who, like me, spends much of his time carefully
observing nature, to incorporate signs and species that American
readers may find in their own backyards.
I should also mention here that some of my very favorite outdoor
clues are the ones I’ve learned far from home. I’ve traveled to plac-
es as remote as Borneo and the Sahara, where I’ve walked among
the Dayak and Tuareg to learn their ancient customs for reading
the land. I come away with a better understanding of concepts and
principles that will change the way I look at the land back home,
and with a deeper sense of how the world around us offers up her se-
crets to those who take the time to look, in ways I’d never imagined.
Lastly, a note on species identification: to get the most out of this
book, I recommend readers carry one or more field guides as they
venture outdoors, as I do on most of my walks. The Internet is prov-
ing a wonderful resource in helping with identification too. There
are countless specialist websites that will help you as you build your
collection of clues, and I am always adding new images and materi-
al to my own website, naturalnavigator.com.
viii | THE LOST ART OF READING NATURE’S SIGNS
Introduction
T
EN YEARS AGO I WAS WALKING along a beach in Brittany,
relaxing after a tiring journey. A young couple emerged from
what appeared to be an upmarket hotel and crossed in front of
me. From their choice of swimwear, their hairstyles and their body
language, they gave the impression of being Continental Europe-
ans. The few words of conversation I overheard confirmed them as
Italians.
The couple paused as the first wave washed over their feet and
then they did what a lot of people do at this point: they subcon-
sciously checked their valuable items of jewelry. Both their right
hands moved to the fingers on their left hands and it was this that
drew my attention to the wedding rings. It did not take a huge leap
from there, given their age and the luxuriousness of the hotel, to
surmise that they were probably on their honeymoon.
I had built a limited picture of this couple in less than ten sec-
onds, using very basic techniques of deduction that are fairly famil-
iar thanks to the countless detective stories that rely on this type of
observation and logical thought. These simple thought processes
have earned the nickname “Holmesian,” after the fictional detec-