Although I do enjoy the festivities around Christmas, I still like to keep connected to nature and can't wait to take part in The Wildlife Trust’s 12 Days Wild nature challenge, as I have done for the past couple of years. I like to set myself up with some ideas that involve indoor and outdoor activities, especially with the unpredictable weather in winter! Hopefully, some of these ideas will inspire you too.
Turning '12 Days of Christmas' wild
Vai Meng Chan
Our campaigns volunteer, April, is participating in her third year of 12 Days Wild.
Go outdoors
Outdoor activities can be as simple as taking a stroll around your local wild space and taking note of the sights and sounds of nature in winter. You could go further afield and visit a nature reserve, woodland, or beach you’ve never visited before; winter sunrises and sunsets make the sky look sublime and can be very atmospheric. There’s also plenty of fungi and lichen to search for in all kinds of habitats too, plus when you’re searching for one thing you’re bound to encounter much more.
Look for winter ducks such as teal or wigeon on marshland and reservoir type places and keep an eye on all those shrubs and trees with berries like hawthorn, blackthorn, rosehip and rowan, which support many birds like redwing and fieldfare during the winter months. Rowan is a fan favourite for waxwings and this winter has seen an explosion of visitors, which hasn’t occurred in the UK in these numbers for a few years now!
Redwing
My local beach in winter has flocks of wading birds gathering such as dunlin, sanderling, ringed plover, turnstone and my favourite wintering goose, the brent goose, feeding on the mudflats as the tide goes out. It’s a dream to watch them scuttle around calling each other, a little winter chorus.
If you have a garden, you could get a nestbox ready for next year. I have a pair for blue tits that have been nesting in the garden for the last couple of years, so I like to do a spring clean for them ahead of the next breeding season. If you have access to a trail cam, you can see who’s visiting at night. I live in an urban area and it’s nice to see the foxes visiting and see what they get up to in the garden under the cover of darkness. I also like to give my feeders a clean and refill them for the birds, taking some defrosted peas to my local reserve for the ducks and swans.
Inside ideas
When the weather inevitably turns, there’s also plenty to do at home. I like to bake something inspired by nature, whether that’s decorating biscuits with icing pens or carving out and decorating a hedgehog shaped cake (it doesn’t matter what they look like in the end, from experience it all tastes great!).
If you’re feeling more creative, you could draw something inspired by nature or pick up a few nature items on your walks and create a collage. If that’s not your thing you can always listen to a nature inspired podcast, watch a documentary, read a book or magazine about wildlife and there’s lots of free resources online too.
Another favourite indoor activity of mine is watching wildlife from my window. Usually, I time 10 minutes to see how many different species I can spot, which for me tends to end up being longer as I become glued to my binoculars watching the goldfinch dance around the trees.
I like to end my 12 Days Wild with a 2024 nature goal, as a way to extend the challenge for the next year with my own personal goal. This year it was to see a red squirrel, which unfortunately didn’t materialise. I think I will have to carry it over to next year because I just can’t give up on that one!
- April Mayne, Campaigns Volunteer
Take a look at the photos below to see some of April's previous 12 Days Wild activities.
