All is quiet save for the birdsong through the window and the sounds of colored pencils making marks on the paper beneath my hand. It is this paper that has most of my attention. Light layers of pigment are laid down in their designated spots. An image forms.

If I were to step outside during an early evening of a waning summer, I would be surrounded by sound. The source is largely derived from small beings.

On a sunny summer morning I spent well over an hour examining a patch of daisy fleabane, a weedy plant that stands at about four feet tall and is topped with small white flowers that are daisy-like with fringed petals surrounding a yellow center. I was at this flower patch for the purpose of counting arthropods.