January Nature Journal Pages

Take a look through my January nature journal pages with me - the coldest and most wintery month, when I've been wondering what to journal about...

I journal from my home in a small village in East Yorkshire, UK. 

I like to journal for personal well-being and enjoyment, so I do what I call 'Imperfect Nature Journaling' - just carving out a little bit of time to feel personally connected with nature every day if I can, or most days, and spend a half hour or so writing and drawing in my nature journal.

I hope that it can inspire you to get nature journaling too!

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

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

My January Nature Journal Pages...

Take a walk through my January nature journal pages with me...

Starting 2025 in my nature journal

I felt like I should do a special 2025 page for my nature journal to mark the start of the year, so I did a floral '2025' lettered title and then just sat quietly and thought about what nature journaling means to me and what sorts of things I wanted to explore in my nature journaling for 2025 - kind of setting my intentions for my nature journaling year - so that's what this page is about...

Dawn chorus nature journal page

I'm walking out in nature in semi-darkness at this time of year, so one of the things I did notice walking through the darkness was the dawn chorus just as the sun was starting to rise. It's a lovely feeling just to tune into our sense of sound and listen to the birds. I wrote my page after I'd returned home from what I noticed and remembered - if you're interested in nature journaling about the sounds you hear in nature, I've got a lesson/exercise on it in my nature journaling course here...

Shooting star!

Another dark walk - but I got lucky and spotted a shooting star! I looked it up and dicovered it was likely to have been from the Quadrantids meteor shower! A lovely thing to see! I think I forgot to wish on it though, so I hope it's still lucky!

It turns out I saw the shooting star because the sky was so lovely and clear, which meant it turned chilly and brought us some snow...

Snowy day!

We had a couple of centimetres of snow, not as much as some of my family who live around 50 miles away. It's always so pretty when the snow is fresh on the ground and on the trees so I wanted to record that in my nature journal. It started drizzling soon after, though, so it soon turned to slush, although my family's snow further away stayed as ice all week, and even longer!

Christmas cactus

A cold week, and I noticed that the houseplants on my bedroom window were in flower, so being a bit of a fair-weather nature journaler, I decided to draw and write about these in my nature journal...

First my Christmas Cactus which looks so pretty with pale apricot flowers. I think it's not the healthiest though, and my nature journaling prompted me to look up what it needed, which I think is to be in less bright light, so hopefully I will be able to move my plant and let it be a bit healthier in the future!

There's also my Kalanchoe, which I know as 'Flaming Katy'...

Kalanchoe - 'Flaming Katy'

Houseplants might not seem like 'nature' but they're absolutely little pots of nature which we've chosen to bring into our homes so that we can feel that all-important connection with nature, so they're perfect subjects for our nature journals - especially when poor weather or other reasons deter us from going outside.

Just so are fruit and vegetables from the fridge or fruit bowl - a reminder that we need nature to sustain our lives...

Cross-section of Chioggia beetroot

This is a Chioggia beetroot which we were having for tea - I've journaled about the Chioggia beetroot before (see my October nature journal pages) so this time I tried to do it a little differently and I concentrated on the cross-sections, with the top and bottom cuts showing slightly different patterns. I don't know if you can see it properly, but I also stamped my beetroot sections in my nature journal to show the patterns and colours directly.

Icy puddles and hoar frost

Funnily enough, I felt like I was seeing similar patterns in the icy puddles. We've had a few days of really cold weather, where the ice and frost hasn't disappeared all day, and the ground is frozen really hard. The icy puddles are thick and there's a thick, feathery hoar frost on many surfaces so I tried to draw that for my nature journal!

Ragwort

This is a dried ragwort stalk, found in a field nearby filled with ragwort. Ragwort is often considered a nuisance weed and, indeed, can be poisonous to horse and cattle, especially when dried in hay, but it's also very important to wildlife and pollinators.

Quarters of Crown Prince Squash

I thought the lovely orange flesh and blue-green skin on the Crown Prince Squash deserved a place in my nature journal - it smelled fresh and tasted nice, sweeter than a butternut squash.

First snowdrops!

I was very excited to see the first snowdrops of the year arrive with their tiny white heads drooping over but delighting us with their promise of Spring. They really did seem to emerge out of the snow this year!

Barn Owl and Moorhen nature journal page

Two lovely sightings one Monday morning with a barn owl criss-crossing the field searching for food and two little moorhens scuttling around a pond, likely also searching for food - I've not seen them for months - it makes me think that Spring is on it way!

Three blue tits

Another sign of Spring (maybe?) - three little blue tits in my garden. I watched them flitting around together - I fancied that two of them were chasing another out of the garden, maybe a sign that a pair have established their Spring territory..?

Some kind of tree fungus

I noticed this little community of tree fungus on a tree in a hedgerow on my walk - they look like little brackets with a brown stripe. I wasn't able to identify them, but I think it's likely to be some kind of bracket fungus or polypore. If anyone knows, please do let me know!

Red Kite circling over crows

A rather scruffy drawing next as I wanted to complete it quickly... but also just to show you that it's okay to have drawings that aren't masterpieces in your nature journal - it's your place to record your relationship with nature in whichever way feels best to you...

And if you want to make a quick scruffy page, that's okay!

But anyway, this is a Red Kite which I saw circling low over a field of crows. What was it doing? Was it going to eat a crow? Or did it want some of whatever the crows were eating?

Hellebore

For my final nature journal entry of January, I thought I'd take a little more time over my page and also try out some grey-toned paper I'd got at Christmas to draw a Hellebore flower (aka Christmas Rose or Lenten Rose) that had just opened. I'm really pleased to see it as I moved it last summer as we'd had a good few years with no flowers (I think it was in too sunny a spot). I was interested to learn that the Hellebore is toxic (someone's been nibbling at the leaves!) but was also used in ancient times for ailments as diverse as 'mental afflictions' and paralysis.

I hope you've enjoyed looking through my January nature journal pages with me. I also hope it's inspired you for your own nature journaling...

I've been a little worried how to keep up my nature journaling for the winter months, and although I've not journaled as much as I'd have liked to, due to being busy with other things, actually it's been quite an education in itself finding things to nature journal about, and how turning to things which are nature, but we don't always associate as nature - such as weather, the skies, houseplants, fruit and veg - has really helped me find things to journal about...

But not just that, also find more ways to feel more personally connected to nature, seeing how much we do actually live in nature in our everyday lives, even when we feel like we don't.

I'm pleased to see some flowers starting, though, and I hope I'll be able to see some signs of Spring in my February journal...

If you'd like to get started with your own nature journal journey, you can get my FREE 'Getting Started with your First Nature Journal' PDF guide here...

I also have a short course 'Imperfect Nature Journaling' to give you lots of ideas for what to nature journal about and how to nature journal in your own way - find out more here...

Learn more about nature journaling and look through more months of my nature journal pages 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...