Nature journaling at Bushy Park Tarapuruhi hones skills

Sandra Morris and a North Island robin at Bushy Park Tarapuruhi. Photo / Paul Brooks

Nature journaling at Bushy Park Tarapuruhi with Sandra Morris next month is a good way to hone your observation skills.

"A good way to introduce people to the park and the flora and fauna there, and getting them to concentrate on some aspect each time we stop ... home in on a certain object and record it, really looking at it intensely.

"It's not until you draw something that you really start seeing. For example, ferns are amazing, all the different edges and shapes … you don't really take that in until you start drawing it.

"It's a matter of sitting quietly, concentrating and observing, and it's quite meditative. It's a really good antidote to the dramas of life. It gets you to slow down and breathe."

Sandra says the group will record not just what they see but also what they hear and how they feel.

"It can be engaging a lot of the senses."

Sandra takes a children's group and an adults' group, with children paying $10 for the three hour session and adults paying $50 for the day. A percentage of the latter goes to Bushy Park Tarapuruhi.

"There's a new, particularly active feeding station, which is terrific for the hihi (stitchbird), and that's a really good thing to do, just observe the hihi coming in and out of the feeding stations. They're so charismatic, they have real personality, those little birds."

With luck, journaling classes will get to see the inquisitive and quite fearless North Island robin.

Sandra says there are new identification posts on some of the trails, with illustrations by Des Bovey.

"Basically, we'll have a fun day out in the bush, relaxing and soaking up the atmosphere, and learning to record in words and pictures what it is you are responding to."

The adults' day session is Sunday, January 10, 10am to 3pm, and the children's is Tuesday, January 12, 10am to 1pm.

Bookings can be made by contacting Sandra by email: sandra.morris@illustration.co.nz.