Bestselling author and acclaimed nature illustrator Clare Walker Leslie invites beginning birdwatchers to hone their observational skills with this this easy-to-use visual guide. Using her signature nature journal illustrations, Leslie shows readers the key clues to look for, from the shape of the beak or talons to distinctive feather colourings, flight patterns, and behavioural traits. She offers simple prompts that encourage readers to embrace curiosity and take a closer look: Where are you? What season is it? How is that bird moving or eating? With an emphasis on the birds that are most likely to be seen at a feeder, in a city park, or at a nature preserve, How to Look at a Bird makes bird watching, identification, and appreciation accessible to everyone, no matter where they live.

This revised edition of the classic guide Keeping a Nature Journal has a fresh look, with full-colour art and expanded sections on journaling styles, drawing techniques, and how nature journaling can be a valuable means of self-expression and a tool for fostering mindfulness and connection with the natural world. Originally published in 2000 with endorsements from E.O. Wilson and Jane Goodall, Clare Walker Leslie's Keeping a Nature Journal was at the forefront of the nature observation and journaling movement. Leslie's approach has long been acclaimed for its accessible style of teaching people to see, witness, and appreciate the wonders of nature, and her classic guide is still used by individuals, groups, and educators ranging from elementary school teachers to college-level instructors. The third edition features more of Leslie's step-by-step drawing techniques, a new selection of pages from her own journals (which she's kept for 40 years), and an expanded range of prompts for observing particular aspects of the natural world in any location. With an emphasis on learning to see and observe, Leslie shows how drawing nature doesn't require special skills, artistic ability, or even nature knowledge, and it is a tool everyone can use to record observations and experience the benefits of a stronger connection to the natural world. AUTHOR: Clare Walker Leslie is a nationally known wildlife artist, author, and educator. For more than 30 years, she has been connecting people of all ages to nature using drawing, writing, and observation of the outdoors. Her books include the bestsellers Keeping a Nature Journal and The Nature Connection, as well as The Curious Nature Guide, Nature Journal, and Drawn to Nature. She lives with her husband and family in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and Granville, Vermont. SELLING POINTS: Update of a classic bestseller. First published in 2000, Keeping a Nature Journal has 126,000 copies in print and is widely acclaimed as a classic guidebook on the topic. Since its first printing, author Clare Walker Leslie has become a prominent, passionate advocate, teacher, and practitioner of nature journaling as she's travelled and taught workshops around the world. Provides people of all ages with an accessible way to connect with nature. From forest bathing to nature-deficit disorder, evidence of the health and emotional benefits gained by developing a connection to nature is stronger than ever, for both adults and children. Leslie has developed drawing and observation instructions, prompts, and guidance that effectively engage people of all ages and abilities - no special artistic skill or nature knowledge required. New features include expanded drawing instructions and more inspiration from the author's personal notebooks. This third edition features new selections from the author's own nature journals, which she's kept daily for more than 40 years, along with her easy-to-follow drawing techniques and expanded sections on mindfulness, reflective writing, and citizen science.

With dozens of simple prompts and exercises, best-selling author, naturalist, and artist Clare Walker Leslie invites you to step outside for just a few minutes a day, reignite your sense of wonder about the natural world, and discover the peace and grounding that come from connecting with nature. Using stunning photography as well as the author’s own original illustrations, The Curious Nature Guide will inspire you to use all of your senses to notice the colors, sounds, smells, and textures of the trees, plants, animals, birds, insects, clouds, and other features that can be seen right outside your home, no matter where you live. Sketch or write about one exceptional nature image each day; learn to identify cloud types and the weather they bring; or create a record of what you see each day as you walk your dog. Easy, enjoyable, and enlightening, these simple exercises will transform your view of the world and your place within it.

"An enormously engaging and informative book. The authors have included aspects of science, history, mythology, and literature in their explanation of Celtic festivals. . . . will provide the answers for all the children and adults who ever wondered about the mysterious rituals of some of our most well-known holidays. A valuable resource for homes, schools, and libraries." --Sasha Lauterbach, Librarian, Cambridge Friends School "Clare Walker Leslie and Frank Gerace have put together a wonderful and much needed introduction to the magical year. I warmly recommend it to all in need of a good, accurate, and clearly presented guide." --John Matthews, author (with Caitlin Matthews) of The Winter Solstice "This is a charming and delightful book for adults and children alike. In a simple manner, the authors trace many of our festivals to their Celtic and European roots." --Father Timothy Joyce, Order of Saint Benedict, author of Celtic Christianity: A Sacred Tradition, A Vision of Hope People love holiday celebrations but most of us don't know why we wear masks on Halloween or watch for the groundhog on February 2. The Ancient Celtic Festivals shows us that many of our modern traditions started in northern Europe with the festivals of the ancient Celts. The Celts were farming people, so their festivals marked the important events of the agricultural year. Imbolc, in very early spring, celebrated the birth of new lambs; Lughnasa, in late summer, the first harvest of grain; Samhain, in late fall, the end of the growing season and the beginning of winter. If we look at our modern calendar, we'll find Groundhog Day falling where Imbolc did, Halloween where the Celts celebrated Samhain, and lots ofother holiday correspondences. That's because descendants of the Celts were among the first Europeans to settle in the New World, bringing their holiday traditions with them.

Although we still celebrate remnants of the old festivals, most of us don't have the close relationship to nature that the Celts had. The Ancient Celtic Festivals will help us reconnect with the natural wheel of the year by getting us outdoors to gaze at the stars, notice where the sun comes up, and look for signs of spring. And special hands-on activity pages will invite us to weave a harvest wreath, stage a spring festival, or warm up the cold depths of winter with hot spiced cider to make celebrating the seasonal holidays more fun than ever.

CLARE WALKER LESLIE is a nationally known naturalist, wildlife artist, and educator. She is the author of the popular children's book Nature All Year Long, as well as six books for adults on observing nature and nature drawing. She divides her time between Cambridge, Massachusetts and Granville, Vermont. Frank E. Gerace has studied the Celts in myth and legend for twenty years. He lives in Allston, Massachusetts.

After writing twelve books over a period of forty years, I said I was finished. However, my life and the life around me has changed and I felt it time to offer to people pages from my own personal nature journals which have been my guides and deep sources for both learning and solace since I began writing books, back in l978. I decided to publish a book that is not instructive or text heavy. Beginning with the Winter Solstice and going through the twelve months of the year, I have chosen one hundred twenty -two pages from my own illustrated/hand written journals of the last three years revealing my reflections, doubts, joys, responses to both family, political, environmental worries and the deep solace I continually find going out into my local nature. As both urban and rural naturalist, educator, wife, mother, grandmother I open my journal pages as they are personal yet universal to all of us as we question our own lives in balance with the ongoing and continual cycles of nature's seasons.

Reveling in the wonders of nature doesn't have to be reserved for vacation. By simply taking a few minutes to look up and observe the hawks hovering over their nest at the top of a city building, or to look down and note the variety of weeds growing in a small patch of earth, or just to glance through the window and appreciate the shapes of the clouds moving by, anyone can connect with nature--anywhere, anytime. Clare Walker Leslie, author of the bestselling book "Keeping a Nature Journal," has spent 25 years teaching and showing people how simple and rewarding it is to notice and record local nature. Nothing is more inspiring than the pages of her nature journals, which feature her daily recordings of small, but amazing natural events she's seen while walking the dog, sitting in a park with her children, or driving around city streets. "Drawn to Nature" features a selection of Leslie's journal pages, arranged to inspire the reader to do as she does: look up, look down, look out and around, bring bits of nature indoors to observe and study, or take your eyes for a walk around the neighborhood. Using a combination of quick, impressionistic watercolors with more detailed pen and pencil drawings, along with the written word, Leslie invites readers to share in the pleasure of her nature watching, and to experience the joy of seeing and connecting with nature wherever they live, amidst the whirl of daily life. For journal keepers, nature lovers, birdwatchers, artists, and anyone interested in using nature as a source for self-reflection or meditation, this book will be a welcome companion and source of inspiration.

No one could describe "Nature Journal" as a blank book. Clare Walker Leslie has transformed what could have been an ordinary diary into something truly unique. The text and illustrations offer just the right amount of inspiration and guidance to help the journal-keeper begin and succeed at making this book his or her own.

First Clare explains to the budding journal-keeper how to get started and suggests some possible formats to follow. She even includes a few sample pages from her own journal as inspiration.

Then come the journal pages themselves. The left-hand page has ghosted-back lines for those who prefer a sense of structure. The right-hand pages are left blank for sketching or writing. Short, inspirational quotes and exercises to help guide the journaling process are scattered among the pages.

At the back of the journal is Clare's mini-field guide, packed with essential information on how to recognize (and draw ) basic families of birds, insects, and trees, thus sparing the journal-keeper the trouble of lugging multiple field guides into the wild. Drop it in the mud. Get trail mix stuck between the pages. This journal can take it Printed on recycled, acid-free paper with a lay-flat binding.

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