Nick Clayton wrote:
what you need to do is make field sketches and notes (blimey I’m starting to sound like GPC).
That is what I am most worried about - I have significant developmental co-ordination problems through Dyspraxia chiefly, and Asperger's Syndrome secondly.
My handwriting is almost unreadable and as for sketches...... well..... I just can't seem to keep a pen or pencil under my physical control. Ask me to draw a cloud and it ends up looking like the Taj Mahal. At school, I was the only person in my year to be asked to do my GCSE and A Level exams on a word processor, such was the teachers' concern over the presentational standards of my work. I never learned to swim or catch a ball consistently and I had the humiliation of always being picked last for team sports in P.E.
Early on in my birdwatching hobby, I thought I had a rare bird and made hurried notes. Now, if you ask me to hurry my writing and drawing, the infantile scrawls I can make when relaxed get even worse. When I got home, I couldn't read my own writing at all, and the drawing was a total mess. I was so angry, frustrated, embarrassed and upset with myself I have not written any field notes or sketches since, preferring to rely on a gift my conditions have indirectly given me; a near-photographic visual memory. Even now, I find it difficult to put my hair up in a pony tail and am an unattractive sight when trying to eat without spillage or food slipping off the plate when using a knife and fork. Dad uses the phrase 'ham-fisted'.
Is there any way I can make field notes, but sidestep the physical aspect of drawing and writing? Are there any computerised handheld gadgets I can use? I would consider digiscoping but I am worried the cost would be prohibitive.