The Sherlock Holmes of the natural world

Call Tristan Gooley the Sherlock Holmes of nature.

Sure, the 44-year-old Englishman is a best-selling author, educator and the only person in the world to both fly and sail solo across the Atlantic Ocean. But he's really a detective of the natural world, using nature's clues to navigate oceans, the wilderness as well as cityscapes.

And he does it all without the use of GPS, maps or his phone. Instead of the high-tech devices, he relies on his five senses.

"One small clue can completely change how we see the outdoors. Everything in nature has meaning and can be used to tell us something. The key is curiosity," he said.

For example, he said, the roots of a tree indicate the sun's direction, the Big Dipper tells the time, a passing butterfly hints at the weather, a budding flower points south.

Using stars, moons and tree rings to navigate

Gooley provides 850 tips to becoming a natural navigator in his 2014 book, "The Lost Art of Reading Nature's Signs: Use Outdoor Clues to Find Your Way, Predict the Weather, Locate Water, Track Animals and Other Forgotten Skills."

"To give you an example, we can use the stars to navigate, but we can also use them to tell time and forecast the weather. When we see a clear star and suddenly we see it twinkling more, that's a sign there's moisture in the air and the weather may deteriorate," he said during a recent interview.

Trees are a favorite Gooley navigation tool.

"There are 19 ways we can navigate using a tree," he said. "Leaves grow more heavily on the southern side, roots are larger facing prevailing winds. We can also make a map using trees because trees are very sensitive to water. Members of the willow family are telling us we're getting very close to water and beech trees indicate the ground is much drier.

"Every single tree is making a map and helping us find north, south, east and west," he said.

Cityscapes offer their own secrets

Gooley reads signs in the city as well as he does in nature: "I take the view that everything in the city is a clue.

• Buildings aren't built randomly, he said: "They take light and all sorts of other things into consideration."

• Some religious buildings offer their own subset of navigation: "Historically, all Christian churches are aligned from west to east with the altar at the eastern end so you're praying towards the Holy Land. And, in some very old churches near where I live there are perhaps 30 indications of direction, you know the way the graves are and the layout of the church and the churchyard."

Gooley said he believes there's a part of the human brain that has evolved to love solving puzzles. This, he said, stems from our ancestor's experience in nature.

"The sound of a birdcall changing to an alarm call is telling us that a predator is approaching. If a whole group of birds makes a certain noise, that is bad weather approaching. If the whole wood goes silent, you look straight up, you see a bird of prey," he said. "None of it is rocket science, because we had to be able to understand this, otherwise our ancestors wouldn't have survived and none of us would be here."

Gooley said he believes that once people learn to read nature's clues they become truly alive:

"When you learn a sign, it starts to take on a feeling, like this isn't just a fact or a bit of data, this is something I know and I have a relationship with. And I see that whether they're clues in water or stars or a tree, in a city, you get to know them in the same way you get to know people," he said. "And, then you get not only the satisfaction but this kind of joy if you would see an old friend."

This story is brought to you with help from the Pohlad Family Foundation.