Nature Features

Do you ever stop to look at the wildlife in your own back garden?

Instead of exploring some far flung corner of the planet, it'll be looking at nature right here under your own feet.

It's called The Nature of Britain, and presenter Alan Titchmarsh will be looking at all sorts of habitats from farmlands, to seashores, to cities.

Listen: The Nature of Leicester

But what have we got here in Leicester? BBC Leicester's Ben Jackson went to the Holly Hayes Environment and Heritage Resources Centre in Birstall to find out…

Could you do a spider survey?

Carolyn Holmes is an assistant keeper of natural history for the county council and she says that part of her job is to help people connect with their surroundings:

"Our work at Holly Hayes is really to encourage people to celebrate the local countryside, get involved with wildlife on their doorstep and a lot of our work is about finding new ways to help people discover natural history.

"So here we are running training sessions on how to learn to identify things as small as lichens that grow on gravestones, or to take inspiration through poetry, drawing and just taking a new look at wildlife."

Carolyn thinks that the beginning of Autumn is one of the best times of the year to find inspiration in the countryside, as it's one of the main times that we notice our surroundings changing.

She says that we're often too busy to notice nature, but when we do, we can really connect with it.

Changing colours...

Carolyn also believes that thinking about our local natural history can really remind us of our roots, and that programmes like The Nature of Britain will hopefully encourage more people to take the time to look at the nature around them:

"Quite often you'll ask young people, 'where do bluebells come from?', and they aren't actually aware that this is our ancient woodland, this is our rainforest.

"I think actually seeing it on the TV reminds us that we can go and see these things on our doorstep, we don't need to travel to the rainforests. British wildlife is fantastic."