I’ve been improving my mental health via the natural world since I was a small child - even though I didn’t know then that’s what I was doing. Facing challenging situations at home, I would play out as often as possible. In the 1950s, that meant wandering about on my own around local woodlands, fields and orchards - usually with a stick (useful for poking about in streams or knocking down apples) and my trusty - but sadly imaginary - dog. 

These days, emerging from the other side of earning a living, house-keeping, child-rearing and generally being a responsible adult, I’m now an elder, gone feral, and back to playing out. I may need a stick again one day, but for now, my companions are my binoculars, sometimes my camera, and occasionally the people I take with me on wellbeing via nature walks.

I’m lucky enough to live almost next door to the Trust’s reserve at North Cave Wetlands, and I visit several times a week. Gentle walking helps with the physical discomfort I sometimes have, and with emotional discomfort too. These days, the world, generally, is a challenging place to live in, and personally we all have past or current experiences in our lives that can unbalance us. The natural world can be healing for us all.

At this time of year, if I’m feeling disconnected, or fragmented, I go the reserve, sit on a bench and focus on the greening of the trees and look for wild flowers appearing. I watch the patterns of light and shade on the water and notice the territorial squabblings and the love-ins of the gulls, ducks, geese, waders, and many other bird species. I let myself experience fully whatever the weather is doing: rain or sunshine touching my face; hearing the breeze in the trees; and depending on how appropriately I’ve dressed, perhaps feeling warmer or cooler than I would be indoors… 

Other times of year, other joys: in autumn the numbers of overwintering waterfowl like widgeon and teal increasing; starlings begin gathering in their murmurations; berries and crab apples swelling and ripening, with tits and finches moving through the hedgerows in their feeding flocks; turning leaves showing their gemstone colours of topaz, ruby, amber. The time around the Autumn Equinox can be one of stunning sunrises and sunsets - although at any time of year there is beauty in sky colours and cloud formations if you pay attention: store them up in your sensory memory bank!

As the year moves on, and the temperature drops, I’ll wrap up warm, sit on a waterside seat or in a hide, and breathe in the scents of autumn richness, or feel winter’s chill touch my nose and ears. And I pay attention to what I can hear: bird calls, the sound of the wind, or rarely - though most beautiful of all - total silence. It’s a very different experience sitting or standing still in the same place but at different times of day or year. 

As the days shorten, and time outdoors becomes more and more precious, I make sure I ‘top up’ with these sensory experiences. Make sure I hold them in my mind and body to remember them when I’m feeling stressed, or busy-busy, or need happy memories to get me through a difficult day.

An experience of a even a short walk around the reserve is enjoyable for itself, for birding and wider nature observations of course, although if you pay attention to your inner being - to what’s going on inside for you as well as outside - the benefits of your walk will continue way beyond the time you spend outside.

As the poet and environmental activist Wendell Berry writes in his poem ‘The Peace of Wild Things’, after he has “come into the presence of still water… for a time I rest in the grace of the world, and am free”. Do read this lovely short poem before you next visit the still waters and all the other delights of North Cave Wetlands, and you too might rest in the grace of the world, and be free.