You Don’t Need a Lot of Space to
Bring Nature Close to Home
Read more of the Home & Garden 2025 cover story here.
It was a gloomy Saturday in northern England, I was 12 years old, and, as was often the case, I was bored. Looking out of the kitchen window through the rain, I began to notice the birds coming to the feeder my mum kept stocked with shelled peanuts. They were colorful and acrobatic, but what were they?
I knew where one of my brothers kept his old field guide, so, with book in hand, I stood at the window and started to figure out what was what. Yes, that one was a blue tit, and the larger one was a great tit. The birds with the green-and-yellow plumage were greenfinches. It felt good to put names to birds…