365 Days Wild

by Lucy McRobert

365 inspirational suggestions for enjoying nature. These 'Random Acts of Wildness' will encourage you to fall in love with, learn about or even help wildlife and wild places near you. A Random Act of Wildness is any little thing that you can do as part of your day, to enjoy nature. It can take a few seconds – like smelling a wildflower on the way to work; or a few hours – like creating a whole area for wildlife in your garden. Some Random Acts of Wildness don’t take any time at all, but instead are little changes to your daily routine that will ultimately be better for wildlife, like buying a reusable coffee cup. The best Random Acts of Wildness immerse you (if only for a few seconds) in nature, setting your senses alight. Smelling freshly fallen rain, tasting the sweet explosion of a fresh blackberry as you pop it in your mouth, wriggling your toes in the icy waters of a stream, waking up to bird song. It’s not just about seeing, but experiencing the wild in every way possible. Let this beautifully photographed adventure guide inspire you and help you to discover your 'wildest' life.

Genres: Nonfiction, Nature

272 pages, Paperback

Published December 30, 2019

About the author

Lucy McRobert is a wildlife storyteller.

I love to tell stories about wildlife, wild places, and hopefully inspire you to have a wild adventure of your very own. I believe that a wild life is a happier, healthier life, and that we can all benefit from more time spent in nature. At heart, I’m a communicator. I love to bring people of all ages, but especially young people, closer to nature.

A freelance communications and marketing professional, I love to promote wildlife and wild experiences to people from all backgrounds and of all ages. I work with local and national wildlife charities and nature businesses to help them improve their own comms and marketing; I have expertise in content creation (including websites, social media, print, email), editorial (including editing magazines and other publications), website planning and creation, social advertising, communications strategies, campaign planning and more, including analysis and evaluation. I especially love to work with small businesses and charities to help them tell their own stories, including training and empowering staff. I enjoy public speaking, chairing and writing presentations, so can help with this area, too.

I’m a writer. My first book, 365 Days Wild, is published by William Collins (2019) in partnership with The Wildlife Trusts, and offers 365 ways to make nature part of your life every day. I write a bi-monthly column on nature conservation for Birdwatch magazine, and have written for BBC Wildlife, Birdwatching, and more, including researching Tony Juniper’s What Nature does for Britain (2015). I contributed four written pieces to the acclaimed Seasons (edited by Melissa Harrison)(Elliott & Thompson, 2016). In 2015, I was placed 38th on BBC Wildlife first wildlife power list, as one of the UK’s most influential conservationists. I have appeared on TV and radio, and give regular talks to groups around the UK.

I have published academically on the impact of connecting people with nature, with my piece ‘Facebook Nature: My generation and other animals’ in Convery, I & Davies, P. (eds.) Changing Perceptions of Nature (Boydell & Brewer, 2015), and co-authoring ‘30 Days Wild: Development and Evaluation of a Large-Scale Nature Engagement Campaign to Improve Well-Being’, Plos:One (Richardson, Cormack, McRobert & Underhill, 2016).

For five years I worked as Communications Manager for The Wildlife Trusts UK office. I helped to set up one of the UK’s most impactful and influential environmental campaigns, 30 Days Wild, encouraging hundreds of thousands of people to do something wild every day throughout the month of June. I’ve also worked in environmental education with the Rutland Osprey Project, connecting 3,000 children across Leicestershire and Rutland with birds and wildlife.

I am a keen birder and cetacean-watcher, and a self-confessed amateur naturalist. I am passionate about encouraging the next generation of nature conservationists, and in 2012 co-founded the youth nature network, A Focus On Nature. My husband, Rob, and I are trying to bring our little girl, Georgiana, up to love wildlife as much as we do, whilst minimising her footprint on the earth. We share in all our wild adventures and are loving discovering firsthand the importance of a wild childhood. Hopefully she’ll grow up as passionate about nature as her parents.

Reviews

[Fern A · Rating 2 out of 5]

I normally really like books like this and the idea behind it was brilliant, however for me the execution of it let it down. The author comes up with 365 ways of enjoying/experiencing/helping nature. Unfortunately before the first month was up there was already a lot of repetition and it felt like the author was scraping the barrel in trying to come up with ideas. Many of the ideas too will be completely inaccessible for lots of people and it was really hard to judge who this book was targeting as it’s audience. That being said the photographs were brilliant. I feel this book would have been far more enjoyable and useful had it stuck to the 30 days wild challenge (where the idea came from) and came up instead with less but more detailed ideas and options. If 30 didn’t feel enough for the author there could always be a few extra thrown in for those with the resources to travel further afield.

[Jennifer · Rating 2 out of 5]

30DaysWild is such a brilliant concept and beautifully marketed by The Wildlife Trusts. It encourages people to spend the 30 days of June undertaking a Random Act of Wildness every day - this can be acquiring knowledge such as birdsong ID, something creative such as haiku or sketching, something active like a yoga practice outdoors, something political or environmental: writing to your MP about an issue, changing your buying habits, something to support wildlife like putting out water for birds or making a hedgehog feeding station... and just plain fun or good for the soul like watching the sun set or making a jelly dessert pond. I therefore expected to feel the same about the 365 Days Wild book which of course could look at more wintry and autumnal pursuits.

But it was all a bit, well, Random in not a good way. It felt uneven and as if Lucy McRobert was racking her brains sometimes for what on earth to put. That really surprised me. Some entries didn't have enough detail, some were repetitive (too many entries were how to put foraged things in booze using a pretty similar method each time) Something I particularly objected to were the too frequent references to her never having been any good at (and still being no good at) various things, more particularly without a counterweight of that not mattering a bit. It could have done with links to further resources.

It is a nice book in the hand, and picks some good 'wild' words, not all of which were already known to me. It's not a bad book... but it was a disappointment.

[Andy Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lucy gives us 365 ideas for things to do to open up appreciation for and experience of the natural world. A number of the ideas seem excellent for involving children and others encourage ways to go out and see nature with a purpose or how to adapt our lifestyles to be kinder to our environment. I have read most of these ideas during lockdown but have things to research and do when this ends. Thanks Lucy.

[Karolina Caliope · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love it ! Beautiful illustrations and nicely done.

[Newman Land Scapes · Rating 4 out of 5]

A book for all seasons. With some fun activities to do with the children

[Helen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lovely book full of seasonal ideas to inspire nature activities.

[Ronald · Rating 1 out of 5]

Badly written. Nothing more than good marketing. Tedious. Pretentious. Arrogant. Speciesist. Biased. Clearly has no understanding of the interconnections in nature. One of many books being published now a days in wich a shiny, happy, plastic person tells you how to love nature without giving a damn herself. She just regurgitates ideas others already have coined. Nothing new here. It also has nothing to do with wildness or rewilding or anything like that. A waste of money and recourses as far as I'm concerned.

Looking at pictures on the web and reading some of her articles like the one published in birdwatch September 2021 called "Safe harbour" gives you an insight of the person she really is. Besides displaying an antropocentric and speciesist view in this article, she flat out condones and promotes trophy hunting in Africa and calls people who are against this racists and of having a colonial attitude. She claims local communities benefit from trophy hunting wich makes it alright to do so. She also is in favour of the shooting community, fishermen, farmers and landowners. She calls animal rights suppporters disconnected from nature while her picture in the birdwatch magazine is one of herself with a meercat on her shoulder. The irony! She even goes as far as to say that animal right supporters do not have empathy towards human animals by wich she means hunters, fishermen and the likes. Not really a person you want to support.

Needles to say the book disappeared in the recycling bin. Save your money and by a book from someone who does know what they are talking about and actually care about nature, non human animals, human animals and the environment.