Autumn is the most rewarding season to keep a nature journal. There is more happening in September and October than at almost any other point in the year: fungi appearing overnight, berries ripening and being stripped by birds within days, the first frosts, the last swallows. If you only journal in one season, make it this one.
This guide covers what to look for, what to record, and how to build a journal that becomes genuinely useful over time rather than a collection of half-finished entries.
Why Autumn Rewards Close Attention
The pace of change in autumn is faster than in any other season. A hedgerow that looks one way on 1 September will look completely different by 1 October. Leaves change colour in a sequence that varies by species and by location. Fungi appear after rain and disappear within days. Birds that were invisible all summer suddenly become conspicuous as they gather before migration or move in from the north.
Recording these changes over several years builds a picture of your local landscape that no field guide can give you. You start to notice which elder tree fruits first, which corner of the wood holds fungi longest, which week the redwings arrive. That kind of local knowledge takes years to accumulate and is worth more than any amount of general reading.
What to Record: A Month-by-Month Guide
September
September is the month of the second harvest. The hedgerows are at their most productive and the light is changing noticeably by the end of the month.
- Berries and fruit: Elderberries (dark purple, in heavy clusters), blackberries (peak in early September, declining by the end), sloes (blue-black, with a waxy bloom, best after the first frost), rosehips (bright orange-red, swelling through the month), hawthorn berries (deep red, called haws).
- Fungi: The first serious fungi appear after September rain. Look for ceps (penny buns) under oak and beech, chanterelles in mossy woodland, and the vivid scarlet of fly agaric under birch. Record the substrate (what the fungus is growing on or near) as well as the appearance.
- Birds: House martins and swallows gathering on wires before departure. Whinchats and wheatears passing through on migration. The first fieldfares and redwings from Scandinavia arriving toward the end of the month in good years.
- Plants: Ivy coming into flower (one of the last nectar sources of the year, important for late bees and hoverflies). Bracken turning from green to copper. The first leaves turning on field maple and wild cherry.
- Light and weather: Note the quality of the light, which changes markedly through September. The angle of the sun drops, making shadows longer and the landscape look different even at midday.
October
October is the month of fungi, colour, and the thinning of the year. By the end of the month, most deciduous trees will be bare or nearly so.
- Fungi: Peak fungi month in most of Britain. Waxcaps appear in old, unimproved grassland (a sign of ecological continuity). Velvet shanks on dead wood. Amethyst deceivers in leaf litter. Shaggy inkcaps on disturbed ground. Record location carefully: fungi return to the same spots year after year.
- Leaf colour sequence: Different species turn in a predictable order. Field maple and wild cherry go first, then oak and beech, then ash (which often drops its leaves while still green). Recording this sequence over several years reveals how it shifts with temperature and rainfall.
- Berries being eaten: Watch which birds take which berries. Mistle thrushes defend holly and yew. Blackbirds strip hawthorn. Waxwings, if they arrive from Scandinavia, descend on rowan and cotoneaster in numbers.
- Spiders: October is when orb-web spiders are most visible, their webs made conspicuous by dew and low light. Garden spiders (Araneus diadematus) are at their largest.
- First frosts: Record the date of the first frost and what it does to the landscape. Sloes become sweeter after frost. Some fungi collapse overnight. Bracken goes from copper to brown.
How to Structure Your Entries
The most useful nature journal entries include four things: date, location, weather conditions, and specific observations. Vague entries like "saw some fungi in the wood" are almost useless when you look back at them. Specific entries like "three ceps under the large oak at the north end of the wood, after two days of rain following a dry August" are genuinely informative.
A simple format that works well:
- Date and time (time of day matters: dawn and dusk are different from midday)
- Location (specific enough to return to: a field name, a grid reference, a landmark)
- Weather (temperature, wind direction, recent rainfall)
- What you saw (species, behaviour, numbers, condition)
- What was absent (noting what you expected but didn't find is as informative as noting what you did)
Sketches are more useful than photographs for training observation. You don't need to be able to draw well. A rough sketch of a leaf shape, a fungus cap, or a bird's silhouette forces you to look more carefully than a photograph does.
What to Carry
A good autumn journalling kit is simple: a notebook that can handle damp (Leuchtturm or Moleskine both work; waterproof notebooks are available if you're in wet country), a pencil rather than a pen (pens fail in the cold and damp), a hand lens for fungi and insects, and a field guide or two. A small ruler is useful for recording fungus cap diameter.
Dress for standing still as well as walking. Observation requires patience, and patience requires being warm enough to wait.
Building a Record Over Time
A single year of nature journalling is interesting. Three years is when it becomes genuinely revealing. Five years and you start to see patterns that no one else has recorded for your specific patch of ground.
The most valuable thing you can track is phenology: the timing of seasonal events. When did the first blackberry ripen? When did the swallows leave? When did the first frost arrive? These dates, recorded consistently, become a personal climate record for your local area.
If you want a structured companion for this kind of seasonal attention, our Monthly Almanac follows the year through folklore, botanical ingredients, and the natural calendar of the British Isles. Each edition is timed to the season and includes observations and prompts that complement a nature journal practice. The 12-month subscription takes you through a full year, from the first stirrings of spring to the depths of winter.