Let the weather decide your nature course of study.

In January, start getting ready for nature study for the whole year. Pack away those holiday decorations and create some space for a naturalists corner in your home. A small table and a set of shelves to display finds is ideal. If you do not have that much free space, purchase a few small boxes with lids while they are on sale after the holidays and clear off a shelf to store them, with labels outward, for easy use. If space is not so much of an issue, add a cork board to display dried leaves and flowers and maps and drawings and have a good lamp and a magnifying glass and if you can, a microscope to explore finds more closely.

When you have your area set up, start planning your outings. Decide what you want to plant at home and where it will go, look up information on local state and national parks, CCC camps, city parks, forests and lakes. Dabble ahead to summer and fall and look for places to vacation and camp, maybe plan to explore a new biome-a conifer forest, a wetland, the ocean or large lake or a high mountain range, a desert or a deciduous forest. In the U.S., all of these things can be found often within one or two day's drive no matter where you are.

Spend the last of the cold and wet winter looking ahead, assembling what you need and getting ready for a fantastic spring.

Activities for nature study for January and February:

Force bulbs and branches of flowering trees.
Feed the birds, keep this up well into Spring-at least April in Alabama.
Learn about hibernation-how to animals and even plants get through the winter?
Recycle and find out what happens to your local items by calling the plant and arranging a tour.
Mark all the phases of the moon on this year's calendar as well as the various meteor showers all year:

Visit a science museum.
Visit a planetarium.
Save plastic jars with lids to use for collecting things later in the year.
Buy or make a flower press.
Listen for Spring Peepers, tiny (the size of a nickel) tree frogs that accumulate around ponds and wet areas in late winter.

March:

Wind is the first thing many people think of when they think of March. Early wildflowers are what pop into my head, so this is a month for both.

Place a wind vane or sock where you can see it. Keep a chart of the direction the wind is blowing.
Talk about ways plants and animals use the wind such as seed and pollen dispersal, odors on the wind, spiders 'ballooning' to move to a new area.

Make your own kite.

Start nature walks in near-by woods and fields to look for early wildflowers.
Bloodroot, trout lily, spring beauty, bluets, henbit, saxifrage and violets are all good bets for March.

Plan your garden on graph paper and start some seeds in trays.

Check out a couple bird song recordings from your local library or download a few (enature.com is a good place to start) from some of the birds you recognize by sight, start listening for the calls when you go out.

April:
Showers and Flowers

Make a rain gauge and add it to your wind vane or wind sock and start adding rainfall amounts to your chart of wind direction.

April 22 is Arbor Day, so plant a tree!

Add a cloud chart to your weather station and keep up with the clouds outdoors each day.

Look in puddles and shallow ponds for frog eggs. Scoop up a few and bring them home to grow in a large glass jar or aquarium. Be sure to only take a few and bring back plenty of the water they were living in as well as algae and plants that were in the water. Do not mix batches of tadpoles, if they are different types, they may eat each other. When the tadpoles hatch, only keep 2-3 and return the rest to where you found the eggs. By the time the tail disappears, you need to let the frogs go.

Look for mosses and lichens (like-en), see if you can identify more than one type. Lichens are really 2 plants, a fungus and alga that took a 'liken' to one another. haha, but is is true. Lichens make good take-home specimens as they dry and store well and they make great natural dyes. Just keep collecting in moderation, as always.

Set up a terrarium in an old aquarium, using local soil and plants. Once established, it will be very low-maintence and will make a perfect and instant temporary home for any critters you bring home to look at for a day or two. Place a mixture of charcoal and rock in the bottom, add potting soil and local soil next. Place in a few plants along with some rocks and 'forest floor litter' such as a few dead leaves, a small hollow log and try to make the arrangement as natural-looking as possible. Keep a tight plastic or glass lid on the top to keep it from drying out, just be sure to replace it with a mesh lid when hosting creatures.

May:
Plant your garden now. By the middle of May, you should have the whole thing laid in and within the month, be eating the first radishes and salad greens.

Plant a living clock this year. The simplest is spiderwort and 4 o'clocks, as the latter blooms in the evening as the day cools and all night and smells really good. Spiderwort blooms in the early part of the day, dying off when the sun gets too hot. A more complex clock was devised by Carl von Linne:

More night-blooming flowers are: nicotania, datura, moonflowers and a cerus cactus. All smell fantastic and the moonflower in particular will lure the sphinx moth, which is huge and looks like a hummingbird.

Plant sunflower seeds.

June:

Water, water, water
This is the time for swimming, for wetland exploration, for making and sailing boats and anything else that will get you in the water. Explore creeks and riverbanks, lake shores and ocean shores, check standing water in your own yard for mosquito larvae, tadpoles and frogs. Do a stream survey

Spend an evening catching fireflies. Be sure you let them go after just a few minutes, they only live a couple of days and they need all the time they can get to find true love-or at least a mate that can flash attractively.

Celebrate the Summer Solstice. Have a bonfire like the pagans did, to encourage the sun to shine and crops to grow. Or have a picnic-this is the longest day of the year, you should enjoy every minute of it.

July:

Learn why we use sunscreen and use it well. Limit your outdoor time for the next 2 months to before 10 AM and after 3 PM.

Find some solar paper and make some prints, you can get it at any science shop and some craft or hobby shops. Follow the directions on the packet.

Make a tan man out of dark construction paper and cover parts of him with different SPF sunscreen. Lay him in the sun and check him during the day. Tape him up afterward to remind you to use that sunscreen!

Try making a sundial.

Watch the bats emerge from Sauta Cave near Scottsburo, AL or find a cave closer to you.

Go on an owl prowl and buy owl pellets to dissect.

Do a night hike, go to where you plan to hike and have a late picnic snack in the dark, letting your eyes adjust to the dark. Then head out to explore a familiar area a new way. If you do this in your own yard, to prepare for a full sensory hike, set out various items to find using senses other than sight-oranges for a snack, something cold or soft or rough to touch, hide a ticking clock or small radio playing very low to find by listening and of course, keep your ears open for nocturnal animal sounds.

August

Too hot to move.

In early mornings, look for fall wildflowers on walks.

Go on a cave tour.

Learn about rocks

Decide what to plant in your fall garden and turn under what has gone by in your spring and summer gardens.

Check out a local farmer's market for some ideas for next year.

Learn to can and dry foods for the winter. Making jelly or pickles is super-easy, as is salsa.

September:

Bake bread from scratch.

Enjoy longer walks as the world around cools off.

Keep in mind that water is warmest in September, so plan a few swimming days early in the month.

Start fall camping from now through November.

Watch for animals to begin migration.

The harvest moon occurs in September, it is the most spectacular of the whole year, so don't miss it!

Celebrate the autumnal equinox-the equinox, as in the spring, means that the day and the night are exactly the same length, all over the world. Then, one half slips toward summer and the other, winter.

Go on a wooly bear hunt, these will emerge next spring as the Isabella tiger moth!

Make applesauce from local apples. Mix 2 varieties for the best flavor. Simply core, peel and heat (low heat) several apples in a covered pot. Add a little water to keep them from sticking. Let them cool and mash with a tater masher. Chill and eat, or go on to can the sauce, it needs little or no sweetener, though a little lemon juice will help the color and cinnamon is a great addition.

Set out your bird feeders at the end of the month.

October:
Leaves!

Spend your time outdoors watching for fall colors, October is a most fickle month in our area-cold and rainy, then hot and dry, some years the leaves are muted and some years they are brilliant.

Either way, you can press them, make leaf rubbings and smear dried leaves with paint to press onto paper like stamps.

If you rake your leaves, now is the perfect time to make a compost pile!

If you do rake, leave a spot unraked and visit it over the winter. You will be surprised how many different living things will call it home.

Get your spring bulbs in the ground.

Look for ways to winterize your house. Check your power company's website for suggestions.

Turn under the last of your garden toward the end of the month.

Cover your flowerbeds with pine straw or hay straw to help insulate the roots and bulbs awaiting spring.

Gather any wildflower seeds that are in your yard.

November and December:

Go through your collections for the past year, label and display what you want, discard anything that has not dried out well and catalog what you have. Keep a notebook just for this, or create a notebook to take along on walks to keep a record of all your finds.

You may want to go through some of your photos and guidebooks and try to draw or paint some of the plants and animals you have seen during the year.

Store your guidebooks for the season, making note of any that need to be replaced or of areas you want to expand, such as a mushroom book or a guide for winter weeds. Now is a good time to make a chart of what you have and place it in a clear plastic cover so you can write over the title with a dry-erase marker when you take it with you or loan it out.

If any of your guidebooks are wet or musty from being forgotten in a pack for a few months, pop them in the freezer for a couple days.

Go online and check out a few seed suppliers and request a catalog or two to pour over while planning your next garden. Look for heirloom and rare plants that do well in your soil type.

Make sure any bulbs or seeds that you collected in the summer and fall are drying and not rotting.

Check out the wind chill factor and add a chart to your weather area.

At some point in the colder months, visit a place you frequented all summer-the beach at the lake or a nature trail. See how things have changed.

Look for mistletoe.

Celebrate the Winter Solstice! After this day, the days get a tiny bit longer each day until Spring arrives again! It is another time for bonfires to hope the sun will shine the whole season. Pagans again have a big bonfire on this day, just like the first day of summer. The hope is for sunny days all season.

Keep your bird feeders full.

Watch a sunrise and sunset.