A gift guide
Gift ideas for nature lovers
People who love nature are famously hard to buy for. They rarely want more things; they want more reasons to go outside and look. These gifts do that, at every budget.
Something to look closer with
A hand lens
A 10x hand lens, or loupe, fits in a pocket and turns moss, lichen, a beetle’s back or the gills of a mushroom into another world. It costs little and gets used on every walk.
Binoculars
For a birdwatcher, a good pair lasts for decades. 8x42 is the usual all-round choice: bright enough for woodland, steady enough to hold for a while.
Something to read
A proper field guide
The classics are classics for a reason: the Collins Bird Guide for birds, Francis Rose’s The Wild Flower Key for wild flowers, and Roger Phillips’s Mushrooms for fungi. For a pocket, the Field Studies Council’s folding identification charts are light, cheap and waterproof.
A book that changes how they look
Merlin Sheldrake’s Entangled Life is about the hidden world of fungi, and is hard to put down. Robert Macfarlane’s Landmarks collects old words for land, weather and nature that are slipping out of use.
Something that keeps arriving
Nature Printed is our natural history mail club. Each month we post two rare species as the Georgian and Victorian naturalists drew them, with notes on what we know about them now: a folded sheet to read, a watercolour postcard and a bookmark. Each month has its own theme, from fungi to octopus and squid, kingfishers, shells, beetles and orchids.
It’s US$10 a month with postage included, and we post anywhere in the world. To give it, put their name and address under Delivery address at checkout; to end the gift, cancel when you’ve paid for the months you want to give.
For Christmas: subscribe by 20 November and their first issue is posted in the last week of November. Subscribe by 20 December and it’s posted in the week after Christmas.
Something to make
A nature journal
A sketchbook with heavy paper, a soft pencil and a small travel set of watercolours. Drawing something is the best way to really see it, and nobody else has to look.
A flower press
For pressing leaves, petals and ferns from walks and the garden, to keep in a book or frame. Pick only common plants, and never anything protected.
Something to belong to
A year’s membership of a conservation charity makes a gift that does good as well: the RSPB for birds, their local Wildlife Trust for nature reserves near home, the RHS for gardeners, or the National Trust for wild places to walk. Most come with a magazine and free entry to the places they look after.
For someone who wants to learn, the Field Studies Council runs short courses across the country on identifying moths, fungi, wild flowers and more.
Something for the garden
- A bird feeder and a bag of good seed, hung where they can see it from the kitchen window.
- A packet of native wild flower seed, for a corner left a little wild.
- A small pond kit, for anyone with room: frogs, newts and dragonflies arrive surprisingly fast.
Small gifts and stocking fillers
- A hand lens, or a folding identification chart.
- A notebook that fits a coat pocket, and a pencil.
- A postcard of an old natural history plate, to frame or to send on.
More short guides