Guest blog: A Year of My Nature Hunting
Guest blogger
Zach Haynes is an 11 year old naturalist and blogger from north Yorkshire.
I have been asked to write a guest blog for Autumnwatch and I was thrilled to hear the news. My theme is on my love of nature and how other kids my age (as well as younger and older) should be interested in nature.
I have a huge love of nature. I adore going out for walks with my parents and the rest of my family. It’s probably my favourite thing to do. I like to go out and find loads of nature, from birds to bugs. Once I find something new or unusual, I try to take photos of it, I then go home and find out all about them, learning so much every time. It’s probably one of the best hobbies to have as it keeps you exercised and you also learn so much in the progress. Best of all you don’t have to go very far to do it and with so many places you can go for free it doesn’t have to cost you anything. Looking at and learning about nature is really important.
From what I’ve seen I don’t think enough people, kids and adults, are interested in nature. Children will be responsible for the world around us in just a few decades time but if not enough people are interested and know about problems nature is facing then I’m not looking forward to it. It will take more than a few interested people to take care for the whole world. Things like Spring and Autumnwatch are what will help keep the natural world in people’s minds, but I think we need more programme like this to engage young people, so more children become interested and involved in nature. I was lucky enough to be in the audience of one of last year’s Autumnwatch Unsprung. I was thrilled, on top of actually being there, I loved walking around Leighton Moss for the day. Seeing the 100 days of nature inspired me to start my blog. I think if we had celebrities who were a bit more nature focused rather than sport / fashion etc it would help too. More people at my school talk about these things than anything else and I think it's probably the same in most schools. We need to make loving nature cool!
Learning all about nature is a start and this has led to me having great opportunities and going to great places. I go for walks at different places closer to where I live almost every day. I love to do this and it helps me understand nature. Being part of the RSPB, the Wildlife Trusts or the BTO is a huge help to nature, all the money is put straight into nature but you can help with your time too. I volunteer at my local nature reserve called Nosterfield which is both a great experience but also it supports nature more than you’d ever realise. Not just the birds and the bugs, but the flowers, the trees. All of these need help as they basically help to keep us alive. We wouldn’t even be able to breathe without them. If we chop down every single tree, where does that leave us?!
So, at the end of the day it doesn’t take much to get involved with nature, and I’d like to see more children getting involved. If they don’t what will their children and grandchildren do for nature? Little changes by lots of people help. You can start in your garden. I have bug hotels, nest boxes (see my blog for how to make one), bird feeders, hedgehog doors in the fences.
It’s very rewarding to see how nature responds. I’ve been everywhere looking to get a photograph of a Nuthatch and guess what, one’s turned up in my garden!
