Living
Have you ever come home from a walk and realized you couldn’t describe a single thing you’d seen? It happens to most of us. We walk past the same trees, birds and flowers every day while our heads are somewhere else entirely. Nature journaling is the cure for that. With a notebook, a pencil and a few minutes of attention, you start noticing things you’ve walked past a hundred times, and you don’t need to be an artist or a scientist to do it. Curious is enough.
Our journals get carried into a lot of parks and up a lot of hills, so we’ve picked up a few tricks from the people who use them. Here they are.
What Nature Journaling Is
At its simplest, nature journaling means recording what you notice outdoors in a mix of words, pictures and numbers. The aim is to look closely and ask questions, and your drawings can be as rough as you like.
California naturalist and teacher John Muir Laws, one of the best-known voices in the field, teaches three prompts that work anywhere: I notice, I wonder, it reminds me of. Write what you actually see, hear or smell. Write the questions that come up. Then write whatever it connects to in your own life. Those three lines alone can fill a page and turn an ordinary walk into a small adventure.
People Have Been Doing This for Centuries
Leonardo da Vinci filled notebooks with plants, birds in flight and swirling water. Charles Darwin scribbled his way around the world on HMS Beagle, and those field notebooks fed straight into his ideas about evolution. In 1906 an English artist called Edith Holden kept a diary of nature notes and paintings, and seventy years later it was published as The Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady and became a bestseller.
Our favorite story is Henry David Thoreau’s. In the 1850s he wrote down when the wildflowers bloomed around Concord, Massachusetts. More than 150 years later, scientists compared his notes with modern records and found that many of those plants now flower earlier in the year. One person’s careful notes, kept for his own interest, turned into climate evidence.
Why Bother?
You can’t sketch a leaf in a hurry, and that’s really the whole trick. Nature journaling forces you to slow down, and whatever you draw or describe sticks in your memory far better than the forty photos sitting on your phone.
Plenty of people find it calming, a bit like meditation with a pencil in your hand. Without trying, you start learning names: that bird is a nuthatch, that tree is a hornbeam. And if you have kids, it’s one of the few outdoor activities that doesn’t need a ball, a ticket or a snack bribe. Well, usually.
What to Take
Don’t overthink the kit. A notebook and a pencil will do to start.
| Essentials | Nice to have |
|---|---|
| A journal with sturdy paper | A small watercolor set or colored pencils |
| A pencil (HB or 2B) | A water brush, with water in the handle |
| A waterproof fine-liner pen | A 10x hand lens for tiny details |
| An eraser | Binoculars for birds |
| Two binder clips to hold pages in the wind | A folding stool or a small cushion |
A word about paper
Paper matters more than people expect, and we’re obviously biased on this, since paper is our whole business. Everyday printer paper is about 75 to 80 gsm and wrinkles the moment it gets wet. Paper around 125 gsm copes with pencil, ink and light watercolor washes far better. For heavy painting, you’ll want proper watercolor paper of about 300 gsm.
Handmade paper has a soft texture that’s lovely under pencil and ink. Test your pens on a back page first, though, since some fountain pen inks spread slightly on textured paper. Our Notera journals use 125 gsm handmade, acid-free paper with deckle edges and hand-stitched Swiss binding that opens wide, which makes a real difference when you’re balancing a journal on one knee in a breeze.
Setting Up a Page
Before any sketching, spend one minute on the basics in a corner of the page: the date and time, where you are as precisely as you can manage, the weather, the temperature if you know it, and what the sky’s doing. It feels fussy. It’s the habit that makes a journal genuinely useful a year later, when you want to know exactly when the first swallows turned up or the first frost arrived.
Then just start. Boxes separate different observations, arrows connect ideas, and labels name what you know. Don’t erase much. Crossed-out lines are part of the record.
Words, Pictures and Numbers
Good pages usually mix all three. Words describe what you see, hear and smell, and they hold your questions. Try writing birdsong the way it sounds to you. In North America the black-capped chickadee seems to sing its own name, and in Europe plenty of people hear the great tit calling “teacher, teacher”.
Pictures should be quick sketches, not masterpieces. A rough outline with a few labels can say more than a detailed drawing. Circle one small part and draw it again larger, like a zoomed-in view of a flower’s center.
Numbers are the underrated one. Count petals, measure leaves, time things. How many birds are at the feeder? What time did the robin start singing? Numbers turn a nice page into a real record.
A Sample Page, Step by Step
Here’s how a simple 15-minute session might go, so you can picture it.
Top corner: Saturday, October 12. 7:40 am. City park, bench by the pond. About 48°F (9°C), light fog, no wind.
First five minutes, just looking: Three ducks on the water, one a little apart from the others. A heron standing completely still on the far bank. Fog sitting low on the water. The smell of wet leaves.
Next five minutes, sketching: A quick outline of the heron on one leg, with an arrow to its neck and a note: “S-shape, pulled in tight, not stretched”. Beside it, a leaf from the bench, drawn larger, with its length noted: 3 inches (7.5 cm).
Last five minutes, questions: I wonder why the heron stands on one leg? I wonder why one duck stays apart? It reminds me of the pond near Grandpa’s house.
No perfect drawing, no expert knowledge. And next October you’ll be able to look back and compare.
Drawing When You “Can’t Draw”
Start with simple shapes, because most things are made of circles, ovals and triangles. A bird’s body is basically an egg with a smaller circle for a head. Try blind contour drawing, where you look only at the object, never the paper, and draw its outline slowly in one line. The result looks wobbly and you’ll have really seen the shape. Draw what’s in front of you rather than what you think a leaf looks like, since real leaves are rarely symmetrical. Keep sketches small, which makes them quicker and far less intimidating. No paints? Just write “dark green” or “rusty orange” beside the sketch. And set a two-minute timer per drawing. It stops you fussing.
Prompts We Like
Start with “I notice, I wonder, it reminds me of”. It never runs out.
Beyond that, try finding ten different things within one square yard (about a square meter) of where you’re sitting. It’s harder than it sounds for about a minute, and then it gets easy. Follow a single insect for five minutes and write down what it does. Draw the same tree once a month for a year. Twelve small sketches of one tree, side by side, make one of the most satisfying spreads a journal can hold. Make a sound map, with yourself in the middle of the page and every sound you hear marked around you. Find five shades of green. And whenever you come back to a place, ask what’s changed since last time.
Where to Do It
You don’t need a forest. A backyard or a window box works. So does a balcony, where birds, bees and weather still visit. On a rainy day, journal from a window. City parks, canal paths and even a single tree on your street all count.
Many nature journalers keep a “sit spot”, one place they return to again and again. Going back to the same bench through the year shows you how much a place changes, which is hard to see any other way.
Through the Seasons
| Season | What to look for |
|---|---|
| Spring | First buds and blossom, returning birds, frogspawn, the dawn chorus |
| Summer | Bees and butterflies, cloud shapes, evening light |
| Fall | Changing leaf colors, seeds and nuts, migrating birds, mushrooms |
| Winter | Tracks in snow or mud, bare tree shapes, birds at feeders, frost patterns |
With Kids
Children are natural nature journalers, since they notice everything and aren’t embarrassed about it. Keep sessions to ten or twenty minutes. Turn it into a hunt for something round, something rough, something red. Wonder out loud together, let them lead, and never correct their drawings. The point is the noticing.
Be Kind to the Place
Leave everything as you found it. Take photos or sketches rather than picking flowers, especially anything rare or protected. Keep well back from nests, dens and young animals, stay on paths in protected areas, and wash your hands after handling soil, plants or feathers.
Your Notes Can Help Science
Apps like eBird, run by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, and iNaturalist let you share sightings with researchers worldwide. In the US, Nature’s Notebook from the USA National Phenology Network collects records of when plants and animals go through seasonal changes, and in the UK the Woodland Trust’s Nature’s Calendar does something similar. Your notes could turn into the next Thoreau story.
Keeping It Going
Keep a small bag by the door with your journal, pencil and pen already in it, so heading out takes ten seconds. Pick a regular slot, like a Sunday morning walk or Wednesday lunch in the park, because “whenever I can” tends to mean never. Once a month, flip back through your pages. Seeing how much has changed is oddly motivating. And if you like company, lots of towns have nature journaling groups, some of which meet online. Peeking at other people’s pages is the quickest way to borrow good ideas.
The Usual Worries
“I can’t draw” comes up most, and it doesn’t matter, because words and numbers count just as much. “I don’t know the names of things” is fine too. Describe them instead and look the names up later. You’ll learn them slowly without trying. “I don’t have time” is answered by five minutes, which really does add up over a year. And “the weather’s bad” is exactly when you journal from a window, or record the rain itself.
Three Things, One Bench
Nature journaling asks for one thing: slowing down long enough to see what’s outside your door. Take a notebook on your next walk, sit on the first bench you find, and write down three things you notice. That counts. That’s a nature journal.
Frequently Asked Questions
What should I write in a nature journal?
Start with the date, place and weather. Then add what you notice, what you wonder and what it reminds you of, in words, quick sketches and numbers.
Do I need to be good at drawing?
Not at all. Rough sketches and written notes work fine, and your drawing will improve with practice anyway.
What’s the best paper for nature journaling?
Around 125 gsm is a good all-rounder for pencil, ink and light watercolor. For heavy painting, choose watercolor paper of about 300 gsm.
How often should I nature journal?
Whatever fits your life. Once a week is a great start, and even a few minutes a day builds a wonderful record over a year. Consistency matters far more than length.
Can I nature journal in a city?
Yes. Parks, street trees, balconies, birds, insects and the sky are all around you, even in the middle of a big city.
