What IS a Naturalist?

I had a friend ask me an interesting question this evening. This is what she wrote:

 I have what may be a dumb question about the term "naturalist" I've seen it used by biologists, marine biologists, zoologists, and then others like Charlie Russel and Timothy Tredwell who have / had no degree at all. What makes a person a naturalist?


Hmmm, well I don't know if there is really a concrete definition for what a naturalist is, but this is what I came up with:


A naturalist is someone who obtains (and when I say obtain, I partially mean commit to memory) A LOT of (hopefully) correct, factual information about the flora, fauna, geology, oceanography, weather patterns, etc. of a certain area or areas. This person also generally shares this information with others who may not know much about a certain area. A naturalist, I would say, is also someone who NEVER STOPS LEARNING. There is always some new bird to identify, some new flower on the pathway, or some strange cloud formation in the sky that sends us running to our own personal libraries to "look stuff up". The libraries of naturalists tend to be daunting and what most people would consider boring. As I write this to you now, I am staring at one of three bookcases in my cabin living/bedroom area - this book case is stacked with bird books, zoological textbooks, animal behavior assessments, invertebrate ID guides for the local inter-tidal zones, cetacean anatomy, and one novel - The Lord of the Rings Then naturalists tend to flock together every-so-often to completely "dork out" on our new discoveries. While we are out tromping through nature either alone or with naturalist buddies, we may come close to actually peeing our pants when we spot something rare or super-interesting, for example, an unexpected owl peeking out from a hole in a dead tree. Needless to say, we are an easily excitable crowd... Just show us a rare whelk clinging to a rock and we'll "lose it"...

Oh, and you'll usually find a pair of binoculars and a camera always swinging about our necks while the color of khaki will be found somewhere draped on our bodies...