Field Notes is a personal data‑publishing project that turns long‑term observations of the world around me into structured reports, charts, and datasets.
The site brings together several small observation projects documenting different aspects of the local environment. The underlying records are collected using tools developed for my own use and published as automatically generated summaries and visualisations.
The goal is simple: To turn day‑to‑day observations into organised, accessible field notes.
The reports on the site are derived from several long‑running observation projects.
Long‑term natural history observations including:
- wildlife sightings
- species richness summaries
- annual heatmaps
- abundance and trend reports
These records form a growing personal natural history dataset.
Analysis of personal aircraft sightings, including:
- traffic summaries
- altitude and movement analysis
- aircraft observation records
Observational microscopy using a historic optical microscope.
Investigations document biological specimens and microscopic structures through written observations and photomicrography.
Environmental monitoring using a Raspberry Pi based weather station recording local atmospheric conditions.
Reports summarise environmental trends derived from this dataset.
Across the site you will find automatically generated reports that include:
- charts and visual summaries
- trend analysis
- downloadable datasets
- structured observation reports
All visualisations are generated directly from the underlying datasets.
The observations are collected and processed using a small set of tools developed for personal use:
-
Nature Recorder
Used to log wildlife sightings and build long-term natural history records. -
Flight Recorder
Used to capture and analyse aircraft observations. -
Raspberry Pi Weather Station
A small environmental monitoring system that records local weather conditions.
In addition, the ADS-B tracking tools can also be used for live aircraft monitoring:
All of these tools are open source and can be adapted for similar observation projects.
Field Notes is a personal observational project built around long‑term data collection and analysis.
The aim is not simply to record observations, but to organise them into structured datasets that allow patterns, trends, and relationships to emerge over time.
The published reports are available here:
The site is generated using GitHub Pages and Jekyll, with reports and charts produced from the underlying datasets.
Unless otherwise stated, the code used to generate the datasets and reports is released under the licences provided in the individual repositories.