There may be a bite in the wind and the nights are certainly drawing in but a conservation charity and a television wildlife champion have launched a campaign aimed at getting more people connecting with nature in the autumn and winter months.<\/p>\n
The National Trust is launching a \u201cWild Senses\u201d campaign on the back of the new BBC series Hamza\u2019s Hidden Wild Isles<\/a> in which the wildlife expert and camera operator Hamza Yassin<\/a> celebrates the UK\u2019s seasons and encourages viewers to notice, appreciate and reconnect to wildlife everywhere.<\/p>\n It comes as a poll commissioned by the National Trust<\/a> suggests people feel disconnected with nature in the darker, chillier months. Though the vast majority said being out in nature boosted their wellbeing, only a third felt connected to nature across all seasons equally.<\/p>\n Yassin told the Guardian that autumn was one of his favourite seasons and was full of the sights, sounds and smells of nature, from birds arriving to overwinter in the UK to the taste of foraged fungi.<\/p>\n \u201cFor me, autumn is the time to use all your senses,\u201d he said. \u201cLet\u2019s go for sight: the colours of the trees are amazing. There\u2019s the sight and sound of what I call the change of the guard as the summer migrant birds head off to Africa and the redwings<\/a> and pink-footed geese<\/a> arrive.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you know how, you can forage for fungi. And the red deer rut is happening at the moment. Get up, go to the middle of Richmond Park<\/a> [in west London], sit yourself down, and just listen to those stags roaring. There is so much that people can listen to, feel, touch, sense, see. Autumn is probably the best month for it.\u201d<\/p>\n One of the central takeaways from Yassin\u2019s show, which is co-produced by the trust and the Open University<\/a>, is that nature is everywhere \u2013 in cities as well as the wilds.<\/p>\n \u201cFor example, you have the fastest living creature, the peregrine falcon<\/a>, living in our cities,\u201d he said. \u201cYou\u2019ve got one of the cleverest, which is the pigeon. You\u2019ve got one of the most cunning, the urban fox. We\u2019ve got badgers, hedgehogs, all sorts of gems. Sometimes in our cities it might seem like there isn\u2019t any nature. But if you just take a little minute, you\u2019ll be amazed at what you can find.\u201d<\/p>\n In the poll, carried out by YouGov, 90% of people said spending time in nature had a very positive or somewhat positive impact on their wellbeing. But only 34% said they felt connected to nature across all seasons equally. Just 13% said they felt most connected to nature in autumn, while for winter it was a mere 3%.<\/p>\n skip past newsletter promotion<\/a><\/p>\n The planet’s most important stories. Get all the week’s environment news – the good, the bad and the essential<\/p>\n Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain information about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. If you do not have an account, we will create a guest account for you on theguardian.com<\/a> to send you this newsletter. You can complete full registration at any time. For more information about how we use your data see our Privacy Policy<\/a>. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy<\/a> and Terms of Service<\/a> apply.<\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n To encourage people to engage with nature more deeply, the trust has launched Naturehood<\/a> with the free walking app Go Jauntly<\/a>, featuring three curated walks in London, Manchester and Birmingham that take in green and blue spaces.<\/p>\n Hilary McGrady, the director general of the National Trust, said: \u201cNature isn\u2019t just in our nature reserves, it\u2019s in our gardens, streets, and local park. Thinking about the autumn, it really does offer a sensory feast: the crunch of leaves, the scent of damp earth, the feel of conkers and the taste of hedgerow berries. This connection is vital for our wellbeing, especially as darker days set in.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There may be a bite in the wind and the nights are certainly drawing in but a conservation…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":220848,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[47],"tags":[192,79],"class_list":{"0":"post-220847","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-environment","9":"tag-science"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220847","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=220847"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220847\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/220848"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=220847"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=220847"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=220847"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}