Nature Journaling from Home
Simple Ideas to Notice Nature Indoors

Inspiring ways to enjoy nature journaling from home using your garden, views from your window, photos, memories and wildlife cameras. Nature is closer than you think...

Nature journaling from home might not be what first comes to mind when we imagine opening a nature journal...

When I first imagined nature journaling, I pictured long, unhurried walks in the countryside with a sketchbook under my arm. It's a wonderful way to journal, but many of my favourite nature journal pages have actually been created much closer to home – and often from the comfort of my own sofa.

While the experience of a trip out into nature, with time and space to open up your journal, get out your pencils and paints, and draw and study the plants, birds, insects and animals you might find is a wonderful experience, for many of us, this is just not realistic if we hope to make our nature journaling a habit we return to often for comfort and enjoyment.

House plants are a lovely subject to nature journal from home

Life has a habit of getting in the way of that ideal nature journaling picture – but reality is reality, and I don’t think the concept of not living up to an ideal nature journaling vision should stop us from doing something we enjoy and something that adds joy and meaning to our lives.

Perhaps you have limited mobility, or have a period of illness, or caring responsibilities. Perhaps the weather is too cold and wet to want to get out in nature, or perhaps it’s too hot and stifling.

Maybe you’re having a busy week, month or year…

It can all affect how easily we can get out and spend that longer period in nature, which is what we hope for and what we envisage when we imagine nature journaling.

And that's okay. Nature journaling doesn't have to look a particular way to be meaningful.

And I want to tell you, you don’t have to do nature journaling perfectly to do it and enjoy it – it all counts, even if you don’t leave your sofa while you’re doing it.

Let me share some ideas to inspire you to nature journal in ways that fit in with your life.

Nature journaling from home is every bit as meaningful as journaling on a countryside walk – and if I only nature journaled when I was out and about in nature, I wouldn’t have many pages to share with you at all!

So here are some ideas to help you nature journal from home – ranging from journaling from recent nature experiences out in the natural world, to literally not moving from the sofa – see which ideas appeal to you and suit your particular situation nature journaling from home…

Nature Journaling Your Garden

One of the simplest ways to enjoy nature journaling from home is to spend a few quiet minutes in your garden.

Even the tiniest garden can hold many nature treasures once you start looking closely and I absolutely love to have a few moments of quietly exploring nature in my own garden – it makes the natural world feel so much closer to home.

If you’re lucky enough to have a garden, the next time you're making a cup of tea, step outside for five minutes and see what you can notice:

• Bees
• Flowers
• Weeds
• Seedheads
• Visiting birds
• Spiders
• Ants

Make a quick sketch in your nature journal, or write about your discoveries and what you noticed.

Drawing garden plants in my journal

If you know you’re likely to want to nature journal in your garden often, you can try and attract more wildlife into your garden:

• Bird feeders
• Bird baths or water bowls
• Bee hotels
• Planting flowers for pollinators
• Planting wildflowers
• Leaving seedheads on over winter
• Leaving wild patches with logs and nettles
• Wildlife pond (even in a half-barrel or smaller)

These can work very well, especially over time, to bring different types of birds, insects and perhaps even amphibians and mammals to explore your own patch of nature.

Nature Through the Window

If you don't have a garden, nature journaling from home can begin simply by looking out of the window.

The same view can look different every day – different seasons, different weather, different plants and flowers, birds.

Seen from my kitchen window - woodpigeon eating buds from my plum tree

Sometimes the same tree outside my window is enough to fill several journal pages over the course of a year.

You don’t need to just draw the same view – look in different directions or focus in on one small aspect that draws your attention.

Or take a different approach to your nature journaling and record the colour of the sky each day…

The Sky

We mostly seem to just ignore the sky – it’s just there, the backdrop to our days – but in fact, the sky is a whole world in itself, just not one that we’re that familiar with.

I've become much more aware of the sky since I started nature journaling. It's no longer just the backdrop to the day, but something I actively notice.

We can get curious about the sky and start exploring it (from the ground, of course)…

A spectacular sky on this occasion - the Northern Lights make a rare visit to our Yorkshire village's skies

As the seasons change, the colour of the sky changes. You could carefully mix the colour of the sky with watercolours each day and record it in your nature journal.

Or record the colours and times of sunsets and/or sunrises.

The sky is not just a flat canvas, though – there’s rain, snow, hail, clouds, wind, storms, and lightning. Perhaps some of these are the reasons you want to nature journal from home in the first place!

These can be recorded in your nature journal in whatever way suits your style – drawing, writing, notes, recorded data – it’s all valuable nature journaling.

Or perhaps you just describe how you feel when you look at the sky – personal reflections are always encouraged in our nature journals.

Then there’s the moon and stars which could become a whole area of study in itself as the landscape of the sky changes over seasons – and even over hours with the movement of the moon across the sky.

Listening

Perhaps you sit in your garden or by your window and just listen and record what you hear in your nature journal.

You can record the birds you hear – I have tips on starting to listen to birdsong (and using the Merlin Bird ID app) here…

But don’t feel you have to identify the birds if you don’t want to – sometimes simply hearing birds is enough – and you could just write about the experience of listening to the birds itself.

Sometimes I even close my eyes for a minute before I begin writing. It helps me notice sounds I would otherwise have missed.

I heard a little cheeping in the garden and looked out and saw these two little goldcrests hopping about in the branches of the old Christmas tree

There’s more to the soundscape than just birds too – what else can you hear?

• Traffic
• Trains
• Wind
• Rain
• Voices
• Church bells
• Aeroplanes
• Birds
• Insects
• Animals
• Machinery
• What else?

Can you identify distance or direction? Think about how you might describe the sounds. Do the sounds change over the course of a day or week?

Weather Journal

We’ve already touched a little on recording weather – and just like the sky this could become a whole area of study in itself if it captures your imagination.

There’s lots to record about weather, and this can be done from the comfort of your own home, by observing from your window and/or an inside/outside thermometer or mini weather station (if you get keen on recording these sorts of noticings).

If you don’t have your own thermometer or weather station, use a weather app that can help you record temperatures, humidity, air quality, sunrise and sunset times, moonrise and moonset, moon phases, rain, wind speed and direction.

You can choose to make nature journal pages of figures and data, or you can draw pictures of the rain on the window, or simply write about how today’s weather made you feel.

Nature journaling about extreme weather - a heatwave

Perhaps you can look out on a garden or street and see what’s different when the weather changes – does it affect the plants? The birds and animals? Do the people you might see on the street behave differently in different weathers?

This is all great stuff that you can record in a nature journal.

Nature Collections

This one may require a little forethought, unless you’re lucky enough to have some cool nature objects lying around the house, but it’s one of my own favourite easy back-ups when I want to find something to nature journal but I don’t want to go out and look for it.

I love to pick up interesting objects from nature when I go out on my walks – pinecones, feathers, interesting seedheads, stones, shells – anything that catches my eye.

You do need to collect responsibly and ethically, not taking from private land, or excessive amounts, and making yourself aware of the rules and regulations around collecting from nature in your local area.

My nature box of inspiration - there'll always be something I can draw or journal about in here

In my box of nature, I do have several feathers, seedheads, pine cones of different types, some interesting stones and shells – and I will quite often just pick something and draw it. Even if I’ve drawn it some time ago, redrawing it can help me notice new aspects about it and I can choose to draw it from a different angle or approach my method of sketching differently to make it interesting again.

I picked up this pinecone and put it in my coat pocket and forgot about it - when I found it again, I decided to nature journal it

You could press flowers from your garden or collected responsibly from the countryside, and draw those or study them and write about them. In this way, you could even be drawing flowers from home all winter long, if you wished.

Nature Around the House

Even if you haven’t collected nature objects in advance, have a look around your house to see what’s there – I’ve found houseplants or cut flowers are excellent nature journaling subjects and you can also look in your fruit bowl or fridge and journal fresh fruits and veggies – try cutting them in half for a different perspective.

The contents of your fridge could become your next nature journaling page

Try:

• Houseplants.
• Herbs on the windowsill.
• Fresh flowers.
• Fruit.
• Vegetables.
• Seeds sprouting

Photos from Recent Walks

This is actually my very favourite way of easy nature journaling. When I go on my daily walks, I often don’t have much time to stop and nature journal as I go, but I do have time to pause and notice, and to take a picture of what caught my eye.

Then, when I get home, or later in the evening, when I try to do my nature journaling, I can get the photo, remember the moment, and do my nature journaling about what I saw and experienced.

Cinnabar moth caterpillar on ragwort - drawn from a photo taken quickly on my walk

The memory is recent in my mind and it’s easy to recall it to draw, and remember what I noticed and how I felt in the moment, to record it in my nature journal.

Sometimes, my photo is blurred or didn’t come out well, or I didn’t have time to whip my phone out to take a photo – that’s when reference photos come in handy…

Nature Journaling from Reference Photos

Reference photos can be used in several different ways when nature journaling from home…

Firstly, they can be used to support your own photos – as in the section above when I’ve taken photos but they didn’t come out well, reference photos from copyright-free reference sites such as Pixabay or Unsplash can be used to fill in missing details (always check licenses before using photos from reference sites).

They can also be used in a similar way to replace that photo you didn’t have time to take. Many of the bird drawings in my nature journal are not from my own photos, but they are recording a nature experience I had – and I then went home to find a reference photo that recorded as nearly as possible what I saw.

I recall the encounter or experience and what I saw and heard and how I felt – and remember that as I make my drawing and write my notes in my journal about my own experience.

Using a reference photo to help recreate memorable nature experiences in my journal

You might notice that I’ve also recorded drawings in my nature journal of birds which I’ve only heard and not seen - or saw only small in the distance. Again, these drawings are from reference photos – a way of recording this listening encounter that meant something to me – making it tangible, visible and real, even though it was ‘just’ a sound.

Read about my year of birdsong here...

Hearing an Egyptian goose was a special moment that I wanted to record in my nature journal - and I used reference photos to help me

The drawing and nature journaling makes it real and solid and cements it in my memory so that it becomes a part of my core.

You can also use photo references even when you haven’t experienced that bird, plant or animal in person. This too is a valid way of nature journaling and it’s ‘allowed’…

Pick a bird, animal, insect, or plant you’ve always been curious about and use reference photos from free reference photo sites (if you want to share your drawings publicly) or from books and nature guides (if your drawings are just for you).

Draw, write what you notice and perhaps research your subject to make a great nature journal page.

A really nice way of doing this is to actually use your own photos as references for your journaling…

Nature Journaling from Memories

One thing I love to do is work with special memories…

Perhaps you had a great wildlife encounter on a vacation, or took some photos at a zoo, or even just some great landscape photos of different places.

Nature memories are still nature. And these are all a nature journaling goldmine.

Revisit memorable encounters with nature and record them in your nature journal – it doesn’t matter how long ago it happened, it’s still a lovely way to remember and record nature in your journal.

If you can remember when, where and what happened, record that. If not, just observe now – what can you see, what can you notice, what are you curious about?

Does it bring up any emotions? Feelings of happiness, or perhaps a sadness or longing for times past? It’s okay to record these in your nature journal too.

Nature journaling from a memory (and a photo) - a memorable encounter with Islay's wild goats

Journaling from Wildlife Cameras

I love watching wildlife live cams on Youtube. It’s a great place to be able to watch nature live and in action, without leaving the comfort of your own sofa – so of course it’s perfect for nature journaling from home and almost gives you the feeling of being in a bird hide or something observing nature for real.

You can see nature from right around the world on live cams – so follow your curiosity and see where you end up.

By the way, do remember to keep your drawings just for you if you're drawing from other people's videos - and don't share them publicly.

Journaling puffins after watching the National Trust's puffin cam - I saw the puffins rubbing beaks together, called 'billing'

This year, I’ve particularly enjoyed watching:

• RSPB – swift box cam
• National Trust – puffin cam and guillemot cam (Farne Islands)
• Badger Wood – badgers feeding in a woodland glade amongst logs every evening (look an hour either side of sunset)
• Robert Fuller’s owl and bird cams – an amazing close-up look of barn owls and other birds

You can also see live feeds of osprey nests, peregrine falcon nests and reintroduced beavers (National Trust, Holnicote Estate) – although I haven’t actually seen any beavers yet, I still keep checking and you can watch highlights of beavers that have been spotted.

Or previously recorded footage like these fantastic fishing bears from Alaska, which I found (below)...

There’s also a live feed of the bears sometimes available at Explore Live Nature Cams.

Search for whichever species interests you and ‘live feed’ to find the live feed cameras. You can add your country, eg. ‘UK’, to find wildlife local to you.

Or just search for ‘wildlife live feed’ to find the most popular wildlife feeds for the time of year – some, for example the puffin cams and the cameras of the nesting birds are only available during the breeding season.

I found some great bird live cams by stumbling upon 'cat TV' live feeds – feeders set up that attract a consistent stream of birds and squirrels – interesting for cats and also for nature journalers too!

Live feeds have a big advantage over recorded TV wildlife programmes in that they are a real-time feed that gives you a realistic experience of watching wildlife, but without the travel and effort.

Without commentary, you can hear the little noises that form a part of the wildlife experience – I’ve enjoyed hearing badgers eating, the noise of puffins and guillemots and even little birds tapping at food.

There’s more of a sense of awe when you see a badger after you watched and waited to see it arrive, that echoes a real-life sighting.

And you get to observe wildlife behaviour in the wild – the behaviour of birds and animals when they feel unnoticed by humans, so more natural.

You might like to try sketching the moving birds and animals you see on the live feeds – I’ve found it’s a skill that takes some time to feel comfortable with – and the drawings may look messier than you feel they should and may be left unfinished when the creature moves on. This is all part and parcel of this type of nature journaling.

Perhaps you just write about what you observe – it’s all noticing and holding the experiences close to your heart through nature journaling in whichever way you feel most comfortable doing it.

It's also okay to just relax, watch and enjoy - even when you're not actively nature journaling, you're still noticing nature, which is what's most important.

Who's been eating my leaf? I noticed these round holes in my rose leaves in my back garden and discovered a leafcutter bee had been biting them to make a nest with

Nature journaling from home reminds us that nature isn't somewhere we have to travel to before we can begin noticing.

Sometimes it's waiting just outside the window, growing between paving stones, visiting the bird bath, or living quietly in our memories until we're ready to open our journal.

Wherever you are today – whether you're sitting in your garden, looking out of the window, remembering a favourite walk or watching wildlife on a screen – you're still building a relationship with the natural world. And to me, that's what nature journaling has always been about.

If you'd like a little more encouragement as you begin your own nature journaling journey, you might enjoy my Gentle Introduction to Nature Journaling or Imperfect Nature Journaling. Both are designed to help you slow down, let go of perfection, and discover the joy of noticing the natural world in your own way, wherever you happen to be.

After all, nature isn't something we have to travel far to find – it's something we can learn to notice, wherever we are.

Deepen Your Nature Journaling Practice

Deepen your nature journaling practice with me...

If you’ve enjoyed my nature journaling reflections, you might also like my 20-lesson course, Imperfect Nature Journaling.

It’s a gently structured, self-paced journey designed to help you:

• Slow down and notice more deeply
• Build confidence in drawing and observing
• Create a calming journaling ritual you can return to
• Feel more connected to the seasons and the natural world

No perfection required. Just curiosity and a notebook.

You can explore the course here whenever you’re ready...

P.S. If you’re just beginning - or would like something quieter and more simple to start with - you might first like to get started with my free 'Getting Started' guide or gain momentum with my 'Gentle Introduction' guide to help you through your first few pages - here...

More everyday nature journaling help and ideas here...

You might also like to explore my seasonal nature journal pages for inspiration in every season, here...

If you're journaling in a heatwave, try these ideas and tips...

Or discover weekly nature journal prompts so you've always got something to journal - here...

There's lots more nature journaling ideas for you in my main Nature Journal Hub - including a free guide to getting started...

Shall we stay in touch..?

Each month, I share stories from my own nature journal, new art from my studio, and simple seasonal inspiration to help you feel more connected with the turning year - if you'd like to stay updated, please sign up with your email address below...

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Lotti Brown is a self-taught nature artist and nature journaling educator whose hand-drawn work is inspired by wildlife, folklore, and close observation. With 18 years in creative fields and 10 years creating nature art, she brings deep practical experience to her work. Trained by the Wild Wonder Foundation, she shares nature journaling courses and guides online. Her artwork has been licensed internationally and exhibited at Goole Museum and Bridlington Spa in the East Riding of Yorkshire, UK.