Amanda Tuke - workshop co-leader and Great North Wood nature-writer-in-residence in partnership with London Wildlife Trust.  Once covering a large area of south London, today the Great North Wood consists of a series of small green spaces – all of which provide a home for nature within a modern urban landscape. The workshop was made possible thanks to public funding from the National Lottery through Arts Council England.

My gaze homes in on raucous crows

- wheeling guardians - air traffic

wardens - jobsworth birds controlling

flightpaths - watchful of the ways

of humans.

I can almost eat the sleek road,

the slosh of last rain

pooling in puddles -

dirt streaking across roads to

spit a goodbye into the eye of cars.

Elizabeth Uter’s nature poems often put a human face to the enigmatic character/behaviour of birds, stones, plants, the inanimate.

Surviving back-to-back storms the trees stand proudly. Unsettling winter is nearly over. Mottled grey sky yearns for powder blue, sun tries to push through cloud. My body fills with fresh breath  as I watch territorial timeshares on garden fences. Witness the importance of flow, understand persistence, learn resilience.

Nina Lewis is a poet from Worcestershire who enjoys writing about nature and place @Neens07.

Winter’s End

Strands of clematis straggle across the bare-ribbed gazebo. A breeze

leaks through the hedgerow in a droning wheeze. Ribes reaches out

gnarled fingers, pink knuckles breaking into bud. Narcissi lift

pheasant eyes to the sun. Under the blue ache of the sky, the old

garden begins to stir.

Angi Holden has been writing most of her life, most recently at a desk so covered in leaves and feathers collected by her grandchildren that it resembles a nature table. @josephsyard

Above the tiled rooftops

Scudding clouds pass pale blue sky,

floating, calming.

Rumble of wind through bare trees,

waving, shivering.

Two birds flop their wings,

gulls chase each other,

red kites soar,

together swooping, mewing.

Then an ack, ack of the jackdaws,

as they pass above the tiled rooftops.

Pam Milner loves to write about her life and wildlife experiences in West Wales

How do the air particles feel brushing up against my warm and flustered hand as I write? How does the magpie perceive my presence as they peer through the window into my messy room. The chaos. Do they relate to me? How do I relate to them?

Amy Bullard draws upon her personal experiences, healing processes and social justice work to write about her connections with nature.

The between marker of my land and yours teems with life. Smokey gray whisps

curl round the silent sentries. American red roses stand proud. Bumblebee tinted

jasmine blooms against parakeet green leaves. A dog barks a warning. Semi-trucks

rumble in the distance. Rust color mounds – feet beware ants are marching.

Bonnie L. Boucek has a deep love for poetry and writing. She writes to conjure strong images and connections within the reader. You can connect with her @BonnieLBoucek on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn.

The view invites the artist:

—Distant woods of heathery-grey, a winter sky of lemon/white rising to cerulean…

—The mid-ground: contours of snow-covered earth defined by blue-grey shadows and rows of sepia corn-stubble…

—And here? Abstraction: snow-bright shadows of ultramarine echoing burnt umber tree-tangles, back-lit with gold...

Nature, framed.

Tessa Grasswitz grew up in England, but currently lives in the USA, working as an entomologist and celebrating nature through art, prose, and poetry.

Evening Window

I can smell the dusk

fresh, cold, clear.

Shapes are highlighted by shadow

and fading light.

Snatches of song play out-

bold robin, hesitant thrush,

alarming blackbird.

A crow lands in the sycamore,

both winter stark-

one dark, one pale.

The only illumination

glowing catkin chandeliers.

Born and brought up in Croydon, Nicola Hunt has always loved wildlife and enjoys walking and looking for wildlife in her local open spaces.

Aerodynamics

Not quite hermetic, still

sealed behind glass, we watch

the crows plough through blue

field skies, their blackness bolder

than a child’s paper cutting,

scything the void, plummeting,

gear noses down, leg struts

extended, hitting grass, adjusting

coifs, cawing to fallen comrades.

One tap, then rising back to air.

Sarah Hill Wheeler. Erstwhile lawyer, aspiring writer, frazzled mother. Sometime Londoner, returned to my rural roots. Now often found outside, with a double espresso, talking to hens. Twitter: @hill_wheeler

Water in the birdbath shape-changes. It shivers into diamonded facets when the wind rises; with gusts, it races in waves along the ceramic sea-wall; the wind drops, the water settles, still and transparent. It’s unscented – fresh-fallen rain from yesterday - but it carries the wet, earthy smell of the garden.

Lindsay Walter lives in York and writes about the world outside her window, seen through her mind's-eye.

Field Oaks

The dining room window frames them:

Sentry-like, they wave tracery ‘gainst

cool-blue sky, dark arms outstretched,

beckoning tawnied eyes and wings

to secret hollows, refuge from

whispering winds, spy-holes

for scampering voles.  They

shelter mothers, answering

plaintive bleats from hungry lambs.

Keep standing, so framed!

Jenny Wood, from Devon, loves writing nature-themed poetry and short stories

Chirpy

Eye to eye with that robin.

The cocky one on my garden fence.

His piercing black bead captures me whole.

‘You’d fit inside the palm of my hand’, I offer

from behind my living room window,

home of bravery.

‘I had you at hello’, he tweets.

Proper outdoor gigolo.

Britta Benson is a happiness & poetry blogging, circus skills instructing & common butterfly following German, a writer, performer & linguist thriving in Scotland, her chosen habitat since the year 2000. oddsends707138946.wordpress.com

Window

Nature splattered her paint palette in a carefree joyous moment

Soft romantic greens frolicking with jester reds and yellows

Scent induced hedonism

Sun brushes long thoughtful shadows, catching the mood

Breathe and taste the colours rolling around my palate

Nature looks deep into the window of my soul

Gloria Maloney writes creative prose and poems about the Essex countryside she enjoys walking in.

Tears of birdshit rain on window panes. Discarded plastic bags cling to the clematis like jellyfish stranded on a shore. Reminders of household chores I haven’t done. But the crisp air kisses my cheeks, and the hairs on my arms stand to attention. A blackbird chuckers, “Get outside instead!”.

Vanessa Wright hails from South London, calls Hertfordshire her home, and has her heart in the Hebrides; she loves to write about nature in all of these places. Twitter & Instagram: @elgeeko1506

A window of willow

Beyond glass,

My eyes lit,

By nature’s chandelier,

Willow strands,

Twitching, feathery twigs,

In a cascade of sunlit threads,

Etching patterns,

On this porcelain blue tile,

Brushed by puffed clouds,

I spot -

A wood pigeon within,

Settled, smooth grey,

Framed by fronds,

Delicately dancing,

In the outdoor breath…

Berenice Tregenna enjoys writing about common insects and plants in a blog called Berie Tree to encourage others to appreciate the nature which surrounds them @berietree

Nature, Framed  

A postcard

I will send to you,

Is a scene from my window view.

The wind folds its words, squeezes them,

To tell a secret to trees.

The green jumps everywhere.

Like the pen stroke, dot, dot,

Every corner in my eyes.

Bit, a bit,

Silent dance,

Shush, …

Kai-Ting's writing is inspired by nature and based in London currently.

wagtails (from the passenger seat of the car)

they duck dive weave

tip and dip, and pip

to each other

dart through wind

bob, blur, swoop

in the sea breeze

flitter like litter

picked up in a gust

thrown up into crisp blue sky

Helen Jones -  workshop co-leader, disabled nature writer

Laid up with a virus, I test out birdwatching on the recline.  Diagonal binoculars take some getting used to. A sparrowhawk slashes through fresh canopy & flies fast-slanted for that appointment it’s remembered. 1. 2. 3. Shrieking, parakeet drama queens shoot up, down, sideways. Just funsies. [Mum, don’t write funsies, please.]

Amanda Tuke - workshop co-leader, nature writer.