If you are familiar with my website and blog and know me personally you will know that nature connection is my thing. I wouldn’t say I’m an expert in it but ever since my childhood it has been the main thing that gets me going other than my faith in Christ. Sometimes the two are hard to untangle.
Nature Connection comes in so many different forms. My key one is birdwatching and was my entry point. Yet before that as a younger child walks out in the countryside with the family were formational in that connection. At times I have ventured into watching insects and other branches of nature but I always come back to birdwatching. I find it helpful to try something new, new inspires me. So I have dabbled in some practices which help connection with nature and written about that under the Nature Connection Menu at the top of the page.
This part of my menu will be the place where I gather some of my nature writings. Follow the previous and next arrows to see other articles on the subject or type in the search engine. There may at times be some overlap with the other subjects I write on. I will collect some of those articles here as well.
In researching what to write for this page I thought it would be useful to see what others have written on the subject of nature connection. I searched on Google and came across exactly what I was looking for – The Nature Connection Handbook. The online pdf pamphlet is beautifully illustrated and broken up into readable sections. It has been written by Professor Miles Richardson and members of the Nature Connectedness Research Group. Miles is Professor of Human Factors and Nature Connectedness at Derby University – improving connection to (the rest of) nature to unite human & nature’s wellbeing. He has written this blog about his work and this forthcoming book:
He also has this paper which is hot off the press at the time of writing this page.
Take some time to read these resources but most of all get outside and find a way that you can engage with nature either through natural navigation, canoeing, fishing and many other ways. Or be like the Grey Heron (Ardea cinerea) do absolutely nothing and stare at nature as Dominic Couzens bird enthusiast, author and tour guide says on the Golden Grenades podcast!