Welcome to our new Nature Wellbeing Calendar series.
Every month, our Calendars treat you to easy and enjoyable ways to get your regular healthy ‘dose’ of nature. Learn more about how nature helps your health and wellbeing.
Here’s some ideas for November.
1. November is all about the leaves. Multi-coloured leaves. Everywhere! Gaze out your window, or take a stroll around your neighbourhood and pause under a tree. Marvel at the leaves, fluttering on branches, twirling down into colourful leaf pools, or dancing on the ground.
Follow the path of a falling leaf as it sweeps and swirls its way down. Just breathe, lower your shoulders, and let go with the leaf. How do you feel?
Crunch, crunch, crunch through the leaf pool, and feel that sense of childish joy. It’s probably the best sound in the world! 🙂
Are you drawn to one particular leaf? Pick it up, and admire its unique colours and patterns. Take a photo and share your special leaf with friends and family when you get home, or with our Nature WhatsApp group.
But how well do you know your local leaves? Would you recognise a native Cherry, Silver Birch, Hawthorn, Field Maple or Lime leaf, or a Sycamore, or a more exotic Ginkgo leaf? Take the Woodland Trust leaf ID test now!
2. Embrace a Wilder Space this winter! Top Wildlife Gardening advice for November is an easy one – just leave it! 🙂 Wildlife need habitat, food, water and shelter over the winter months. So, do leave the fallen leaves or make them into a pile in a Wilder corner for Hedgehogs and other small creatures. Leave some stems as shelter for insects, and some seedheads and overgrowth in bushes and shrubs as food and shelter for birds.
If you feel the urge to take some action, you could use fallen leaves as mulch in beds and pots, or plant wildflower bulbs for early pollen for pollinators, and for early spring colour for you! And don’t forget to keep your bird food and water stations well-stocked.
And how to resist the urge to ‘over-tidy‘? Simply visualise your wild friends thriving in your Wilder Space over the winter. Perhaps insects snuggling down in hollow stems or Blackbirds happily hunting under fallen leaves for food. Or a cute and fluffy flock of Long-tailed Tits playing together as they visit for shelter and snacks. Imagine the enormous sense of satisfaction if they DO appear!
Finally, the best bit. Settle down in the warm with your Nature Journal or a notebook and your favourite drink, and plan next years Wildlife Gardening fun. 🙂
3. Treat yourself to a November Wood! Knavesmire Wood is easily accessible from York. Try these lovely walking or cycling routes. Or take a bus from town down Bishopthorpe or Tadcaster Road, and walk the short distance to the Wood at the south end of the Knavesmire.
As you enter the Wood, notice how the quality of the world around you changes. Wander where you will. Let your eyes, ears, and sense of smell lead the way. Look up, and notice the newly-bare branches in the canopy and the sky beyond. Look down, and notice the colour and shape of leaves carpeting the floor. Are there any mini-Fungi delights peeping through the leaf litter?
Stroll down the beautiful Lime Tree Avenue, then branch off into the denser Wood. Can you find one of the ancient oak trees dotted around, or the enormous 300 year old Queen Beach Tree?
Perhaps find a bench and sit for a while. Just breathe. Tune in to the voices of the different birds singing around you. There is only you and the Wood.
When you feel ready to leave, pause, and notice how you feel now. You may feel refreshed, with a clear head, and a remarkable new sense of calm and balance. Smile to yourself, and enjoy a happy and relaxed journey home. 🙂
York Bike Belles 