No. 48 Keep a nature diary

Girl sat on a tree trunk at Lyme Park, Cheshire — Record what you can see and hear in different seasons | © National Trust Images/Chris Lacey

Follow our tips on creating a diary to capture memories of the animals and plants you see outdoors. If you like wildlife spotting, you can also take part in a wildlife survey to help care for nature.

Record your adventures

January is a great time to begin a diary but you can start at any time of year. Decide how you’ll record your experiences of nature. Find a diary or a scrapbook to use. You can use words and pictures – perhaps you could write a poem or a story. If you have a sound recorder you could even record the noises made in nature.

Make a note of all the things you’ve seen and done, whether it’s a picnic in the wild, rolling down a huge hill or getting to know a wild animal. Which activity did you enjoy the most?

You could even set yourself a target for the number of new animals you’d like to see this year. Count them up at the end of the year – how did you do?

Track the seasons

Keeping a diary is a brilliant way of recording changes in nature. You can track the seasons by going back to your favourite wild spot at different times of year and making a note of the colour of the leaves, the sounds you hear and the wildlife you see.

A photograph of a kingfisher sitting on a branch in Wetland at Morden Hall Park — A kingfisher at Morden Hall Park, London, where there's a viewing platform for bird watching | © Frederick Bryan

Join in a wildlife survey

Write down when and where you see different plants and animals. Your information could help protect wildlife if you share your findings with a local wildlife group (find your local Wildlife Trust).

You could also take part in a wildlife survey, where people help by spotting different types of wildlife together. For example, the Big Butterfly Count takes place every summer in the UK, run by Butterfly Conservation. Or join in with the RSPB's Big Garden Birdwatch, where people record the type of birds they see outside their house each year.

Another idea would be to keep a weather journal and complete three more ‘50 things’ activities at the same time: go cloud watching, get up for the sunrise and watch the sunset.

A child holds a folded origami flower — We have tips on how to make folded origami flowers | © National Trust Images/James Dobson

Get arty

Could your nature diary take the form of a picture book or a slideshow? Take photos of your adventures and findings and show them to your friends and family. If you can find a microphone, record some wild sounds and play them in the background of the slideshow.

To brighten up your diary, draw the animals or plants you’ve seen, cut shapes from coloured paper or create a collage using fallen leaves. You can decorate your diary with anything from stickers to ribbons, coloured stamps or cut-out pictures from old magazines and newspapers. Follow these instructions to make an origami blossom. Get arty and see where your nature diary takes you.