Leaf, Cloud, Crow (a backyard weekly nature journal)

Keeping a nature journal is far more interesting than keeping a diary, when you wallow on about your own life and woes. It inspires you to look in your own backyard, garden or park or by the beach, to be amazed at the creatures we share England with, and even further afield.

Use with eco-friendly drawing pencils or natural vegan watercolour paints.

Leaf, Cloud, Crow is an illustrated journal to guide observations of nature in gardens and yards, city parks and vacant lots, or even the sky, enhanced by inspiring prompts from the author.

What do the bare branches of winter allow you to see? How does summer’s abundance provide for different wild animals, and can you find abundance in your own life? What changes have you noticed in natural habitats near you – not just from month to month, but from year to year?

Grow more attuned to all the ‘radiant things bursting forth in the darkest places, in the smallest nooks and deepest cracks of the hidden world’.

A howling love letter to the world, the story of what we’ve lost and what we can save and the abundance of wonder in our own backyard.

Another nice nature journal to inspire

A Perpetual Journal Practice asks you to accept an invitation to connect with nature, with botanical artist Lara Call Gastinger, who teaches artists on how to develop a rich mindful practice, using 52 of her own full-page journal spreads.

From how to number each page spread in a fresh blank journal, to tips on bringing those blank pages to life through art, this is a powerful book for naturalists who seed a deep and personal understand of nature and the healing of green spaces.