2021, A Year of Nature

First of all, since this is my first post of 2021, a belated Happy New Year to all my friends, followers and readers. May 2021 be a year of blessings for you all.

Normally at the end of the year, I post a review of the year’s activities together with setting out some plans for the year to come………but I thought that would be a bit pointless because, as with everyone, my plans were all a write-off! That’s not to say the year was a write-off because actually, in many ways, it was still a great year! One of the benefits of cancelled plans though is that planning for the coming year was easy – I just carried over all my failed plans from 2020. I have no idea if I will be able to achieve any of my aims, it is just one day at a time for all of us isn’t it?

For the time being, it is local walks only again, but I’m enjoying the little pockets of quasi-countryside that surround me, parks and tracts of heathland etc. Because of the uncertainty, I did decide on one thing and that was that 2021 would be a ‘Year of Nature’. As you will know, I love wildlife, the countryside, and just being amongst nature in any form so what is different about 2021? Well, whilst I love nature, I have never really got to know it in detail. I see lots of it on my walks, and I regularly make resolutions to identify what I am seeing and to learn the names of creatures and plants etc. Then I start to do that but then a few weeks later I see the same thing and I just can’t recall its name despite having identified it only a short time previously! Does anyone else have that problem? It just becomes demoralising and I wind up giving up trying.

So this year, whilst everything is so uncertain and restricting, I decided that I would try again in the hopes that some of the things I learn will stick 🙂 ! To help with this, I have set myself up with a ‘Year in Nature’ journal in which to write, sketch and paint my findings. Hopefully, the putting pen to paper will help the information to gel in my mind 🙂 ! I have also acquired a movement-triggered wildlife camera so that I can record night time activity in the garden.

For the time being, shorter, local, nature rambles are the order of the day and all being well I will share some of my findings on this blog. I have already discovered some interesting things, including some frogspawn in the local park – it is very early in the year for this……but that’s a story for another day.

And who knows, maybe I might just get a backpacking trip in this year as well, Covid willing!

Stay safe, and thanks for stopping by.

Until next time,
Your friend
The Dorset Rambler

If you would like to contact me, my email address is terry.yarrow@gmail.com – comments and feedback are always welcomed.

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