Creating a nature collage will encourage you to look closer at your surroundings, so you will spot things that you might otherwise have missed.
Top tips
• You can visit any habitat to gather your natural objects, but gardens, parks, woods, hedgerows and the strandline of beaches all work well.
• The trick is to collect objects with a variety of colour, texture and form. Leaves, seeds, nuts, berries, fungi, animal skulls or bones, twigs and shells are ideal. Flowers are much less common and harder to find in autumn, but you should still be able to spot a few.
• Arrange the objects on plain paper or card. Now take a photo of your collage to share on your blog or on social media.
• Make sure to show us too! You can get in touch with us on Facebook, on Twitter at @WildlifeMag or via email at wildlifemagazine@immediate.co.uk
Note: Use common sense when collecting natural objects. Never take all the berries or flowers off a single plant or tree, and never take every specimen of a particular mushroom or toadstool. Only gather bird’s nests if they are lying on the ground, because empty ones in hedges and trees may still be used by roosting birds, small mammals or invertebrates over the autumn and winter. Dry seedheads, too, provide a home for overwintering insects so are best left alone.
