Explore my September nature journal pages with me as I record late summer flowers and butterflies, unusual insects, and autumn berries and fungi...
Discovering nature in Yorkshire, UK - September 2024.
My nature journal is a regular routine of recording the nature I find with drawings and words, making quick sketches or slightly longer drawings (I don't want my pages to take too long) to show what I see and writing descriptions and researched information about what I've found.
This is a way of bringing nature into my daily life and allowing me to feel connected with nature so that I can feel more relaxed and re-energized as I go about my life.
Hopefully, you'll be able to gain some inspiration from my pages to help you with your own nature journal pages.
Click 'Play' above to watch me flick through my nature journal pages for the month.
You can take a closer look at all the pages below...
Come, explore my September nature journal with me...
I started my September nature journal with what I thought was going to be a pair of cute caterpillars doing acrobatics on a leaf - I even found a leaf they'd munched right through leaving just the vein structure behind...
But when I tried to identify my 'caterpillars' I discovered they actually seemed to be the larvae of the Hazel Sawfly (they were busy munching through hazel leaves) - they have fake legs (the little yellow 'legs' in my drawings) and make these curving postures to hide or in defence.
The sawflies they become are harmless and cannot sting.
Next, the fragrant Lemon Balm which grows in a pot by my back door. This is a plant we had great swathes of in the garden when I was a child and we used to play in it, pick it, and make rather dank and murky 'perfumes' from its leaves!
I haven't tried that again as an adult, but this, although quite little and with smaller leaves than I remember in childhood, is flowering quite prettily with white and yellow flowers. Although the flowers are tiny, they're nectar-filled and very attractive to bees.
The plant itself is a popular herb used in drinks, ice-creams, and candies, as well as traditional medicinal uses.
I then drew a grey broken shell (I think it's a Common Whelk) while nature journaling inside whilst looking after my (barking) dog, concentrating on looking at the structure and swirling patterns.
My next nature journal page was a flower, flowering slightly out of season, in my garden, the pretty, yellow Kerria Japonica...
I love this plant in my garden, even though it gets a bit crazily overgrown all the time! It's so cheerful with its bright yellow pom-poms. I learned that this is a cultivated form of the plant which grows wild in the mountains of China and Japan. In Japanese it is called 'Yamabuki', the 'mountain butterbur' or 'mountain breeze'.
I looked to the fields for my next nature journal session where these pretty lilac Creeping Thistles grow all along the field verges. They're classed as weeds, and very prickly, but the nectar, pollen, and seeds are important for insects including butterflies and moths, and farmland birds.
Almost unbelievably, people used to eat the flower heads, young shoots, stems and roots!
My next nature journal pages were the results of studies and drawings over several days of fungi spotting on my daily walk in the field...
I'd spotted some different fungi in the field and thought to draw them. I struggled to identify them initially, until I'd come back to study the development of one of the mushrooms over several days. It grew into one like the larger one I'd seen on the first day, which I did manage to identify as the Stubble Rosegill mushroom (Volvopluteus gloiocephalus - formerly Volvariella gloiocephala).
There is still a smaller mushroom/toadstool that I failed to identify (right-hand side of page)...
This period of September was during my week off. I thought I'd get lots of nature journaling done, but in the end I was very busy and didn't get very many pages done as I was tired.
I did have a lovely visit to a local gardens, though, and was fortunate enough to capture a photograph of a Red Admiral butterfly on a Rudbeckia flower so that I could use it to journal a few days later at home...
One of the things I love about autumn and was hoping to capture in my September nature journal is some of the beautiful berries we have around in nature at this time of the year...
Elderberries are so striking with their tiny deep black-purple berries and their red stems - elder was considered quite a magical tree in days of yore, associated with witches and fairies. Often, it was considered unwise to bring the wood into the house, but the delicious berries were a different matter - although they're mildly poisonous raw, they can be cooked and eaten. They've also been traditionally used against a whole host of minor ailments.
I actually spotted my first brambles (aka blackberries) a few weeks ago, but this is the first time I've got round to including them in my nature journal - and I think the first time they look really juicy and tasty, too. As you can see, not all of them were ripe, some were still just starting out as little green blackberries - I think the mix of colours look lovely!
Traditionally, there was a date when you should not pick brambles after else they turn into the 'Devil's fruit' - this varied according to which part of the country you were in, often at the end of September (Michaelmas Day) or October (Halloween). If you've ever tried a late season blackberry, you'll know that they do taste somewhat sour!
If you're too late for brambling, you could try passing under a bramble arch (the arching stem of the bramble plant) which was said to cure various ills (but may also be rather prickly!).
As well as berries, the turning of the leaves is another sign that we're progressing into Autumn, and these gorgeous red Virginia Creeper leaves in my garden have just turned this pretty shade of red that looks so striking. I wonder if it's the cold or the shorter days that signifies the time to turn red..?
There might be signs of Autumn around, but there's still signs of summer hanging on through the flowers that are still in the gardens and fields. These Corn Marigolds I often see in the fields but did not know what they were called. They've been native in the UK since the Iron Age so we have a long history of co-existing with these field weeds (wildflowers) and a long list of common names including the very pretty 'Harvest Flower'.
These used to be such a problematic weed that riders would record the plant's growth in fields and farmers could be fined for allowing them to set seed in crops.
The pretty daisy-like Mayweed is another flower that's very common in the fields around my house - again, I wasn't sure what it was called and it took me a little while to work out it's name as it's very similar to the chamomile. I'm fairly sure this is the pretty Mayweed, though, also known as Scentless Mayweed, Scentless False Mayweed, Scentless Chamomile, or Corn Feverfew. In parts of Scandinavia it is named after the pure whiteness of the god Baldr's (son of Odin) shining brow: 'Baldr's Brow'.
These sloes are near the field gate on one of my regular walks. There are very few this year - and so far, without much of their characteristic white bloom. I did notice this Spring there were few blossoms. On researching, I discovered that a wet and cold Spring and Summer (like this year) means there are very few of these lovely black berries in Autumn.
I took the opportunity on a rainy day to take a specimen from my garden of a white Fuchsia plant. I spelled this Fuschia, but discovered it's technically 'Fuchsia', named after naturalist and botanist Leonard Fuchs but is so commonly misspelled as Fuschia it's pretty much accepted as an alternative spelling now.
The pretty flowers, white in this plant, have a beautiful, waxy translucent look about them and gorgeous lime green tips!
My final nature journal page for September was a bit of a surprise - a little shield bug sitting on the bin. This is a Hawthorn Shieldbug - it likes to eat hawthorn berries but will also feed on other plants and trees. I managed to get a photo that I made a (somewhat wonky) drawing of - I was surprised how shiny and metallic he looked, and also to see all the tiny black dots over him.
Shieldbugs are also sometimes called stink bugs - so it's a good job I didn't try and touch him as they can emit a stinky liquid as a form of self-defence, which can even stain your fingers!
I hope you've enjoyed browsing my September nature journal pages with me. I've very enjoyed exploring the fungi and I've enjoyed the first red autumn leaves and I like that I'm still finding flowers out, to draw - I'm trying to draw flowers when I see them in the garden or as I'm out and about as I'm aware we're heading into autumn and winter and they might not be around much longer.
I'm looking forward to what October brings next month, too - more autumn leaves, seedheads, perhaps more berries and fruits.
I hope that this look inside my real-life September nature journal will help you feel confident that your journal pages don't need to be works of art, beautiful, or carefully planned. Your nature journal is for you - and the beauty of it is in the process of doing it and how this makes you feel.
If you're interested in creating 'imperfectly' in your own nature journal, do take a look at my short 'Imperfect Nature Journaling' course filled with lessons and prompts to help you fill your own nature journal while feeling more connected with nature - check it out here...
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