After decades of travel to many countries, we have decided to put some of our experience in nature-focused travel into a form others can benefit from. This website is one form of that realization.
IMPORTANT CONTENT: Hidden within a related website of ours is “A Norman Environmental Primer“. It is an effort at public outreach on key environmental issues of our time. Though directed initially towards residents of our town in Oklahoma, most of the pages are relevant anywhere. We are putting this announcement for it here because we have noticed that very few people have visited this site since we put it up – now a few years ago.
This name of our website, “The Naturalist’s Travel Page” requires some explanation. Just what is a naturalist? One definition of a naturalist is a person who studies or is otherwise interested in natural history. But just what is natural history? One internet definition of natural history is “ The study and description of living things and natural objects, especially their origins, evolution, and relationships to one another”. Natural history includes many sub-disciplines, such as geology, meteorology, botany, zoology. Each of these major divisions can be further subdivided; zoology includes ornithology, herpetology, ichthyology, mammalogy, and other “ologies”.
The About Us section describes our backgrounds and something about where and why we have been traveling. Links to more detailed information about us and more detailed descriptions of where we have been are found in this section.
Our webpage also provides extensively illustrated material related to our travel to some of the locations we have visited. This is a work in progress. We are attempting to make these less of personal travelogs (people tire of these) and more like Wikipedia-type informational material that can be used by others.
We have given many presentations over the years, older ones were mostly to our Central Oklahoma Cactus and Succulent Society. They can be freely used by other cactus and succulent societies (or other organizations) in the US and abroad. More recent talks, roughly in the last ten years, have been associated with conferences related to biogeography or related subjects. Talks of a scientific or more technical nature, mostly related to meteorological or environmental topics, can be found here.
Since August 2022 Mike has been giving talks aboard cruise ships of the Holland America line. Over 14 cruises he has given approximately 125 talks during about 250 days at sea. Some of these talks are available on this website; hopefully more of them will be made available in some manner.
Under the Photography tab you will find a short course on field photography intended mostly for biologists, but also of value to any anyone interested in nature who takes photos.
There are two tabs, Astronomy and Meteorology, that relate to our interests in these areas. The Astronomy section was developed in response to interests prior to the 2017 total solar eclipse. The Meteorology section was originally a separate website but has been merged here and relates to Mike’s professional background in meteorology. One subsection is geared towards meteorological services (this section is currently “private” due to its “poor” state of development) and the other is aimed towards biologists who need more background in the subject.
The short section on outreach summarizes some current activities related to education and public outreach.
Finally, our Updates section contains messages to those who might be following the page.
Needless to say, you will see no ads on our websites. Nothing cheapens the message of a website more than advertising, and we pay to keep it off.
Other websites of ours that may be of interest to naturalists
In addition to our main website (The Naturalist’s Travel Page) we maintain websites on the following topics:
Sites maintained by Mike for a meteorology audience:
This site is intended to help meteorological services in developing countries improve their organization and operations. It has material in both English and Spanish. It is perpetually in a state of (very slow) development. It is currently “Private”, since it needs serious updating.
Sites maintained by Rosario:
Central Oklahoma Cactus and Succulent Society
This site serves the needs of the local cactus and succulent society, but also includes material intended for aficionados of these plants anywhere.
and one maintained by both of us for the Norman, Oklahoma community:
Here we describe a small (about 200 acres) urban wild area that is managed by the City of Norman. The website material could serve as a template for other such areas near urban areas. Our discussions of environmental education are probably universal.
A tab within this page is entitled “A Norman Environmental Primer” – admittedly a bit presumptuous, but it covers environmental topics we believe every citizen should be aware of. Though directed to Oklahomans, the content of much of this page has global applicability.
THE NATURALIST'S TRAVEL PAGE 