We walk the raised-bog boardwalks near Šiauliai in every month of the year and write down what the bog was doing that day, so the next person on the planks knows what to listen for, what to wear and where not to step.

There are four of us, sometimes five, and none of us is a botanist. We started walking the Tyrelis boardwalk together in the spring of 2021, when most other places to meet were closed and a bog was one of the few where meeting felt normal. It lies just past the last garages and allotments on our side of Šiauliai, close enough to reach by bike after work, and within a month we had walked it at dawn, at noon and in a hailstorm. The notebook began as a shared list of what we had seen.

Most of our walks are at Tyrelis, because it is near. A few times a year we drive an hour north-west to Kamanos, which is a strict nature reserve and a different kind of place: bigger, quieter, and with firm rules about where visitors may go. Between the two we have learned the bog calendar well enough to plan by it, from the first cranes in March to the week in late October when the cranberries darken and the first ice skins the pools.

Each walk is written up from notes made on the planks, in a small waterproof notebook passed from hand to hand, and from whatever we remember on the ride home. We are careful with the names of plants and birds, and when we are unsure we say so. Nothing here is sponsored, nobody is paid and there is nothing to buy. If you meet four people on a boardwalk arguing quietly about whether that call was a crane or a black grouse, it may well be us.