@Nancy
Nancy---I was going through the comments tonight and just had to say how lovely it was to see Bern Heinrich's name! I love his writing, but have not seen the Naturalists Notebook that you mention. I will look it up! Thanks for sharing.
Ellen
I just took a look in my library and found 2 books that might be of interest: The Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady by Elizabeth Holden ( a gem of an old nature journal, and a best seller when it was published in 1977); and A Practical Guide for the Amateur Naturalist by Gerald Durrell gives lots of interesting ideas about how, where, and when to find interesting things in our natural world.
I'm very excited to be starting to journal again. I have done some writing in the past, but adding drawings and paintings will be much more interesting and fun! I learned to draw using "Drawing on the Right-Side of the Brain" by Betty Edwards, but I stopped doing it on a regular basis. One of the appeals of this course is to start me up and keep me going with new ideas. I am doing this with a friend which is an added inspiration. I retired this year and this is a gift to myself.