What is Nature Journaling?

In the practice of nature journaling, you use words, pictures, and numbers to collect and record your observations, questions, connections, and explanations on the pages of a notebook. You do not need to be an artist or a naturalist to begin. These skills can be learned by anyone, and you can develop them with deliberate practice.

A nature journal is a lens that focuses your attention, enriches your experiences, and develops your skills as a naturalist. This practice also enhances your observations, curiosity, gratitude, reverence, memory, and joy. It helps you discover, think, and remember. Nature journaling is creative, rigorous, and playful, easy to begin and learn, and your practice will grow and mature over a lifetime. Begin today, and the world will offer you its secrets of wonder and beauty.

See some examples of nature journal pages below, and
click here to learn more, find resources, and get started today!

Nature Journal Pages

A nature journal is as unique as the person who created it. That is one of the things that is most fun about nature journaling—there is no wrong way to do it. As avid journaler Fiona Gillogly says: “As long as you are having fun, you are doing it right.” Thanks to the folks who gave us permission to share their pages below.

My working definition of love is sustained, compassionate attention. When you pay attention to another, it changes your relationship with them, and it also changes you. That attention is also what forms and sustains our relationship with the natural world. Your attention is one of the greatest gifts that you can give to the world. It is a celebration. It is a song of connection. It is a prayer to the wonder of what is around us.

—John Muir Laws