April newsletter
March seemed to fly by, and there has been a lot happening out there in the the natural world. We’ve had a pretty wet month, but interspersed with some glorious sunshine and a few warm days. Read on below for our latest updates: Species of the month is Buff-tailed bumblebee TV review on My Garden of a Thousand Bees Community outreach & social prescribing. Wild Roots Nature Fest – further updates. Warmly,Ros Species of the month Buff-tailed bumblebee (Bombus terrestris) I love a bumblebee. Their size and buzzing makes them a distinctive sight and sound of early spring, and the…
Spring walk – Quay & quay meadows
Finding our pace Spring is officially here, and the days are now officially longer than the nights. Mid-March brought us some much warmer (unseasonably so) weather, and we’ve had a really good run of sunny days, so it was a joy to get out and see how much things have changed over the last few weeks. We began our walk along the historic stretch of St George’s Quay, taking a moment, as always, to pause, breathe, and gently arrive.Everyone was invited to find a slow presence in the here and now. This simple act of grounding set the tone for…
March Newsletter
Welcome to Wildlife Wellbeing Walks monthly updates for March 2026. Spring has definitely started, although the weather has been a bit mixed so far! Read on below for our latest updates: Species of the month is Lesser Celandine Film review on the documentary Six Inches of Soil. Community outreach & social prescribing – what we can offer. Wild Roots Nature Fest – an update on what we are offering this year and how you can access all of the content and book your place. If you aren’t on our mailing list and would like to sign up, we’d love to…
Winter walk – Fairfield Nature Reserve
A different perspective January can be a tough month, and I found the last couple of weeks particularly hard (and with a stinking cold to cap it all off in the final days!). So it was lovely to get out on Saturday 24th with the group on this cold but sunny January morning. The stiff breeze felt like a welcome (if chilly!) way of blowing away some of the cobwebs. We began the walk along the canal – the reverse of the way we usually go – to get a new perspective. This was very much the theme for the…
New Year’s Day Sunrise Walk
A calm and mindful way to welcome 2026 This is always one of my favourite walks in the calendar: starting off by seeing the sun rise is a beautiful way to greet the year (I’m also not one for fireworks or late nights, so this definitely suits me better). Having checked in with each other first, I invited the group to take notice of all the different scales with a poem I wrote (see Poetry Corner, below), an invitation to mindfully connect with the world around us. This year dawned cold, crisp and bright as we gently wandered up from…
The January Blues – real or imagined?
Is it really a thing? The January blues are, indeed, a real thing with extensive writing and media coverage including a blog post by Circle Psychology Partners and an active discussion on The Jeremy Vine Show on Monday 5th January 2026. Differing slightly from Seasonal Affective Disorder (or SAD) which may be classed as a form of clinical depression, and require treatment, the January blues are shorter in duration and may affect more people. This is especially true in times of financial hardship, the return to work after the festive season, and especially if you leave for work and return…
Everything is Connected
It has been a while since I added a blog post onto the website, mostly because I have been fully focused on Wild Roots Nature Fest, so with the festival getting ever closer, it seemed like a good time to add a new post to explain a bit more about the festival and why it has taken so much of my time! Outreach and community I have been to Escape2Make, Quernmore Primary School, Lancaster 13th Scouts (Beavers group) and Carnforth Scouts (Beavers group) where children have had some creative fun colouring in images of a whole host of animals to…
Hazel – December’s species of the month
Hazel – Corylus avellana Think that there is nothing to see in winter out in nature? Think again! The trees around you might appear to be taking a long nap (or even looking a bit dead), but they are just taking a breather, preparing for new life in the Spring. Hazel is a great species to be looking out for at this time of the year, with its yellow-green catkins hanging, waiting to emerge. In fact, last year I saw the first open Hazel catkins on Christmas Day! This is quite early (due to the mild conditions) as the normal…
Beech – November’s species of the month
Beech – Fagus sylvatica I love beech trees… I shouldn’t have favourites, but this is definitely in my top 5! From the elegant, sweeping limbs to the perfection of its canopy in spring, summer and autumn. From the beautiful catkins to its knobbly beech mast and long, delicate leaf buds. Not to mention that its trunk looks like an elephant’s foot (and who doesn’t love an elephant) this is a species that has me captivated year-round. Did you know that copper beech is something which happens spontaneously, and can either be on one or two branches, or the whole tree.…
Robin red-breast – October’s species of the month
Robin – Erithacus rubecula With migration firmly in my mind for this month, I thought I would share some information about a much-loved and familiar bird species that mostly stays close to home. The robin (aka Robin red-breast) usually doesn’t move more than 5km from its territory at any time of the year, although some females will migrate to warmer areas of southern Europe ahead of the winter. Those which remain during the winter season are fiercely territorial and both sexes sing during this time of the year. The singing is intended to prevent physical disputes, but they have been known…