The Magic of Looking a Little Closer

Hello Everyone  This is the first of my newsletters for my followers from The Community Ecology Movement & The Good Nature Project - thanks for signing up!  

I've been thinking about how much richer life is when we slow down, step away from our screens and be a human, in nature(!)  rather than engage in all the crazy tech & AI things going on right now. At our last We Are Forest Women gathering, three hours seemed to fly by. We found some wonderful clues to secret lives unfolding in the forest: a whole clump of badger hairs - something I’ve never come across in three or four years of badger surveying and training. And a red squirrel’s very own buffet table, revealed by the distinctive way it had nibbled cones under a Douglas fir. The badger hairs may have been left during a territorial fight - something that occurs during this time of year when badgers are fattening up for winter and competing for food sources. Such an incredible gift to find these - and something tangible, and exciting to show to my first We Are Forest Women participant! We also carried out some deep listening practices in nature going from the tiny to the big, to notice even more of what was around us.

That same spirit of noticing has found its way into my two most recent little films. On my birthday, on the island of Inchcailloch, across from the West Highland Way, I spotted a heron in the distance and thought it might have something in its beak. A closer look through a long  lens revealed a very big perch!   And even the birds in a rowan tree can surprise us. What looked at first like a gathering of familiar song birds turned out, on closer inspection, to include different species, all making the most of the berries. I've shared two short films below, featuring the heron and the berry-loving thrushes. I hope they encourage you to look a little closer next time you're outside.

Click to Watch: Heron and perch & Thrushes in the rowan 

For me, this is also what We Are Forest Women is about: creating space for real-life experiences, connection and community in nature. Just as people find friendship 

through running clubs and other meetups, I hope these gatherings offer a chance to share curiosity, discovery and time together, away from our computers and phones. But also I like to log findings so that the presence of species are recorded in important databases - last month this included a newt too!

Our next We Are Forest Women gathering is Friday 30 October - that’s the week after this one. If you'd like to join us, I'd love to see you there. (you don’t need to be from the area)

To find out more and/or book go here:  https://www.communityecology.co.uk/

Warm wishes, Janine

For clarity, @thegoodnatureproject is my personal brand for posting nature films on Instagram,  and The Community Ecology Movement is where I share face to face nature engagement activities.