February Nature Journal Pages

Browse though my February nature journal pages with me...

I nature journal for fun and well-being, recording the nature I see in my everyday life in a village in East Yorkshire, UK.

I hope I can inspire you to start nature journaling too so please take a look, and see that my pages aren't perfect but it's a lot of fun to record my experiences seeing birds, or just recording interesting fruit and veg, and helps me feel more connected to nature, which also helps me feel more grounded and relaxed (less stressed!).

Click Play above to explore my February nature journal pages with me!

There's also a closer look below, too...

February Nature Journal Pages

Come and explore my February with me, as seen through the pages of my nature journal...

I've drawn quite a few of these pages with my new fountain pen - experimenting with different materials. I like the feel of it, can't decide about the look of it - the smudging isn't so good!

Long-tailed tits and starling murmuration

As the seasons move on and the days start to lengthen, our early-morning dog walk starts to see the first threads of light, and more birds waking up - such as these little long-tailed tits bobbing around in the top of a tall hedgerow and starlings taking to the sky in beautiful murmurations before settling back down in the tree tops. We've seen several starling murmurations over the first couple of weeks of February!

Arum lily leaf

With so much around still being dead and brown, this green Arum Lily leaf with its distinctive white pattern caught my eye.

And also I spotted this little nest in the empty branches of the hawthorn hedge...

Little nest made with orange twine

I suspect it's an old nest (last year's) but the moss was green and fresh-looking so I'm not sure. Interestingly, it was made with long lengths of orange baler twine wrapped around and around, looping around the nest. Probably a sparrow's nest (my guess) since I've often seen sparrows hopping in and out of that hedgerow. It's incredible that birds can make such beautiful structures out of our old rubbish, but it also makes me feel kind of sad that they have to!

February Hazel Catkins

Just further along on the same hedgerow, in a sheltered spot, are long, dancing hazel catkins. These are the male flowers of the hazel tree, where each catkin is made up of around 240 little flowers all hanging together. These contain a pollen, that's caught by the wind and goes on to pollinate the tiny female flowers (although male and female flowers grow on the same tree, they can't self-fertilize so need the pollen from a different plant).

Kestrel nature journal page

This page was an experiment (not entirely successful) with my new watercolour pens (which I haven't worked out properly how to use, yet) but recording a beautiful kestrel which must've been hungry as s/he swooped down low, close to where I was walking, to pick something (a little mouse?) from the ground. We later saw a pair of kestrels in the tree together, close to this spot, and have since again seen the kestrel repeating the same behaviour, swooping very low over the field.

Signs of Spring - purple crocus buds

I was very excited to record an unexpected sign of Spring in my nature journal - these little purple crocus buds in the grass - still not out yet, but a welcome sign of colour and warmer days to come!

Red Alder catkins and cones

Another day and another experiment in my nature journal, this one drawing on brown paper (which I really enjoyed). The beautiful red of the Alder tree (Red Alder, I believe) caught my eye and it was filled with little red catkins and tiny brown cones. Here, the catkins are the male flowers and the cones the female flowers. I think these cones are last year's cones, and perhaps the tiny nubs will grow into this year's cones - or are they just baby catkins still? Very unsure!

Barn owl (Tyto alba)

We do quite often see the Barn Owl in the early morning or just at dusk, but were treated to a fine view on this morning, when we watched him/her criss-crossing the field (called 'quartering'), perching in a low tree, continuing his/her quartering then coming to rest on a fence post not too far away, where we were able to walk past while s/he watched us for a while (perhaps in case we flushed out any mice?) then finally took off and flew away back towards its home in a big old tree at a little distance away.

'Sweet Mama' Squash

One of the cool things about nature journaling is that it's just as good to journal the nature in your fridge! So when this lovely round and stripey 'Sweet Mama' squash arrived with our shopping order, I immediately wanted to draw it for my nature journal. So here it is with its beautiful vibrant colours and amazing stripes and thick knobbly skin. We haven't tasted it yet, but hopefully it will taste as good as it looks. It smelled lovely and sweet and fresh, too! Also known as 'Kabocha'.

Little peacock feather

Another nature journal page with a nature object from inside today! This is a little peacock feather that I found in a car park on a day out in the Autumn and I've been saving it for nature journaling one day when I didn't see anything outside, or didn't want to go outside to look! And that's this day. It's a tiny peacock feather which is so beautiful with its shimmering colours - and very difficult to draw! I wonder where it belongs on the peacock? Is it from a little/young peacock? Is it from the base of the tail? Would it have grown into a long peacock feather if it'd stayed on the peacock? Or is it supposed to be so little??

(A hint of ) daffodils at Clifford's Tower, York

And another nature journal page from a day out today! This one is from a day trip to York where I noticed just a couple of daffodils showing yellow on the mound of Clifford's Tower. It's a beautiful sight to see the daffodils at Clifford's Tower and round the City Walls in York and is a lovely sign that it's definitely Spring. We're not quite there yet, but a tiny splash of yellow is a hopeful sign - and it makes me want to return in a few weeks to see the mound emblazoned in yellow!

Glowing orange moon and various water birds

I've put a few 'cool things' together on my next nature journal page - one is the large orange moon which I saw in the night sky the previous evening. On researching why the moon was orange, there are two possible reasons - when it's low in the sky, the light it reflects from the sun has to pass through more layers of atmosphere to reach us which creates a phenomenon known as 'Rayleigh scattering' where the blue light in the spectrum disperses and only the redder light remains. There is also the possiblity of more particles of pollution in the atmosphere, possibly from fires. A beautiful sight to see, regardless.

Also lots of waterbirds which I saw in the fields while we were driving around the countryside including a Little Egret (stood on a ditch bank - I always see them on ditch banks), and a small flock of Lapwings and a large flock of white sea birds all settled in a large flood in a field.

Poppy seedheads

I drew a few of my dried poppy seedheads, collected (and gifted) from the garden last summer. Because of the colour, I thought drawing them on brown paper would be good to show the colour so I tried that.

I continued with the brown paper on the opposite page, with a dried hydrangea flower head, also collected from my garden, now faded to the same pale brown, and beautifully papery and delicate with tiny veins all over the petals...

Dried hydrangea flower head

Next in my February nature journal are some daffodils, bought in bud, which I observed and drew across 4 consecutive days, on a double-page spread...

Daffodils across 4 days

Seeing the first daffodils is one of my favourite things about Spring each year - and they're not out in my garden yet, although I have seen a few when I've been out and about - so I bought a bunch to get my daffodil fix and practice drawing them from all different angles and at all different stages, seeing what I could notice about them...

Daffodils nature journal drawings (1)

I love the papery bud casing which detaches entirely as the daffodil opens. It was also very interesting to see how that huge trumpet and the six large petals could all be folded up together into the bud.

Daffodils nature journal drawings (2)

Opening up, some of the daffodil petals seem to stay curved around the trumpet. I also noticed, that for these particular daffodils, the trumpet was a slightly darker and warmer shade of yellow.

Thrush - (mistle thrush?)

My final February nature journal page is this lovely Thrush, which I saw (and especially heard) singing early in the morning at the top of a hawthorn tree in the fields. I'm unsure if it was a Song Thrush or Mistle Thrush...

My first thought was Song Thrush as it sounded lovely, but on investigating further I'm more inclined to think Mistle Thrush, as it was singing at the top of the tree, which Mistle Thrushes tend to, compared to Song Thrushes which sing lower down. And the singing made me think first of a blackbird (but not a blackbird) and the song of the Mistle Thrush is supposed to be similar to a Blackbird. So maybe it is a Mistle Thrush - lovely to see and even lovelier to hear, in any case!

I hope you've enjoyed looking through my February nature journal pages with me. I've been happy to see some signs of Spring, more birds around, and the idea that the natural world is starting to come back to life as the seasons move towards Spring-proper now - I'm looking forward to seeing what stirs in March!

If you're interested in doing some of your own nature journaling, I can heartily recommend it as it's so lovely to feel more connected with nature and to have this physical book you can hold and write in and look through. This page is a really good place to start to find out all about nature journaling.

I also have a free guide to getting started with your first nature journal - click here to get signed up...

And a short course called 'Imperfect Nature Journaling' (to remind us we're doing this for fun and well-being, not to create works of art) which has 20 nature journal exercises/prompts to help you learn to nature journal in the way that feels best to you - you can find out more about that here...

Online Nature Journaling Course

If you'd like to explore nature journaling more, please consider joining me for my 'Imperfect Nature Journaling' online course - I've called it this to remind us to nature journal for the process of connecting with nature to feel good and not to put pressure on ourselves to create pretty pages which can quickly ruin the fun and the benefits...

It's a series of 20 lessons which are great exercises that you can do in your own nature journal to help you try out different ideas and techniques.

This will help you get the most out of your nature journaling sessions and understand what style of nature journaling is the best for you personally.

If this sounds like something you might like, you can find out more about the course here...

Learn all about nature journaling or browse my nature journal pages from other months here...