By Tanya Steele
The Yarra Ranges Garden for Wildlife program (YRG4W) is encouraging residents get creative in their own backyards with a free online webinar on nature journaling on Sunday 21 May.
The session will encourage people to look closer at their surroundings by using the practice of writing or drawing to keep a nature journal in their own gardens.
Suzanne Burville from Yarra Ranges Council (YRC) Climate and Nature team keeps her own journal and encourages people to have a go.
“Nature journaling is a great way to make a connection with nature, it helps move your focus off your day-to-day activities,” she said.
“It gives you permission to just be out in nature and sit still and observe.”
The Gardens for Wildlife workshop is open to all and will be delivered as a webinar as part of the Gardens for Wildlife program.
Suzanne said the process of journaling doesn’t mean a person has to be “creative”.
“When you begin to journal you also begin to closely observe what’s happening with flora and fauna around you, it promotes inquisitiveness,” she said.
Suzanne said she hopes this webinar will provide the community with a way to document the changes in their gardens.
“You might see something you don’t know the name of such as a bug on a flower or a plant and you’ll be more inclined to find out more about it,” she said.
The YRG4W program itself is a free program run through the YRC to assist residents with introducing small changes to their own backyards to encourage visits from the local fauna.
“People may notice as they introduce more indigenous plants to their patch, new birds or insects start dropping by,” she said.
“If they draw and write about it in their journal they will have a record of changes that took place over time.”
Participants will get a rundown on how to begin their nature journal and do some simple exercises to get started, materials required are a pen and paper and nature finds from the person’s own garden.
The session will run on Sunday 21 May from 10.30 am to 12 pm and is free to access, people can register on the Yarra Ranges Council website.
