Nicola Chester’s top tips for getting yourself and your family closer to nature:
What worked for Nicola as a child
• Spend some time just being outdoors no pressure because you’re not ‘doing’ anything.
• Gardening, walking a dog, photography, collecting – finding a new way.
• Find new ways! Raise butterflies and tadpoles.
• Keep a diary of what you see.
• There’s nothing like the buzz of discovering something for yourself. You don’t have to know stuff, you just have to enquire, be curious, and wonder with them.
What works for Nicolas’ children
• Enthuse about it, get excited, show some passion, wherever you are.
• Stop at places and let them do what they like. Take a flask, take a book.
• Let them research things in their own way back home. Discover them through multi-media – bring the modern world right into it. Blogging, websites. They’ll love to feel part of a club.
• Feel the weather and the seasons and make doing things a seasonal tradition.
• Find things out together.
Nicola Chester, RSPB Birds Spring 2013