How connecting with birds and nature helped me recover

In 2021, while trying to process—as we all were—the global pandemic and how it had changed our world, I suffered a series of sudden health disasters.  

At the same time, my marriage ended. I was grieving the loss of my family as I knew it while trying to provide some semblance of normality and comfort for our two beautiful young children.  

I felt vulnerable and untethered, much like the Red Kite I could sometimes see flying above the small copse of trees near my house.  

I was also supporting my brother, who, with tremendous courage, was living through a deeply traumatic situation.  

I was struggling with anxiety and obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD): conditions I had lived alongside since losing my younger brother, Peter, to cancer when I was ten, but that became worse during this challenging time.  

I was working and striving to maintain my career with the RSPB, an organisation I care passionately about. I was trying to pay the bills and keep the increasingly dilapidated roof above our heads.  

It was one of the most difficult years of my life and I felt heavy with grief most days like I was shrouded in dark clouds. Looking back, I am not sure how I made it through that period of my life, but I am certain that part of the reason I did was because I fell in love with nature. 

For the first six months of 2021, I was debilitated by a vestibular disorder. I had to learn how to balance again, to walk, and to do the simple things that I once took for granted.  

I used to challenge myself to try to walk a little further each day and soon found I was able to step a few hundred yards to the meadow behind my house. It was in the meadow that I spent much of the summer that year.  

I meticulously observed which wildflowers grew and when; I counted Chimney Sweeper moths, and butterflies. I tracked the flight paths of a Kestrel and observed as it trained its fledglings to hunt. I discovered a family of Barn Owls inhabiting the same barn as the Kestrel and watched three beautiful owlets appear on the beams. I marvelled at how they all lived in harmony within the barn as this is unusual for birds of prey. It felt like a very special scene to be immersed in.  

My world that summer was very small, but I allowed myself to be swept away in the magic of the meadow. Rooted among the Kingcups and Cornflowers, I felt a sense of peace that I had not experienced in a long time.  

It was also at this time that I started writing. I found myself illustrating my feelings through poems about the meadow and the wild landscape around me. It became a mechanism for processing my grief and, slowly, I began to heal.  

These days life is much brighter and has improved in wonderful ways, but I still write and spend time in nature. They are immensely important parts of my life, and I am grateful for them.  

There is increasing evidence to suggest that being connected to nature can improve our wellbeing and having reaped the rewards of time spent in nature myself, I wanted to explore this more deeply. There is lots of scientific evidence on the link, but I wanted to do something a little different.

I wanted to examine this link through the creative process of writing poetry, and that is how a seedling of an idea grew into a beautiful book, Wild Roots.

Wild Roots is a consciously curated collection of poems from a diverse range of people. Through creative and personal reflections, the poets in this collection illustrate how connecting with nature up-lifts us, surprises us, and grounds us, at our most difficult times.  

One of the things that I am most proud of is that the poets that feature in Wild Roots represent such a wide diversity of communities –from neurodivergent writers to those with English as a second language, from different ethnic backgrounds to working class writers and writers from the LGBTQIA+ community, and many more. 

My hopes for this book are that it will encourage more people to connect with nature, and do more to protect our natural world. I also hope that it will provide a source of comfort to others living alongside adversity. 

Creating Wild Roots has been a labour of love. At times it felt overwhelming juggling book production with motherhood and my role at the RSPB. I worried I wouldn’t be able to compete the project.

RSPB Chief Executive Beccy Speight was kind enough to provide a concluding chapter for the book, and every time I doubted myself, I read her words. Hers is a moving and powerful call to action and the words, "don’t you dare give up on this wonderful world just yet,” inspired me to keep going. 

I’ve been really moved by the support we’ve received since publishing Wild Roots and our beautiful book is now scattered across the world from Hollywood to Sydney. Over half of our first print run sold within the first two weeks, enabling us to raise vital funds for the RSPB. I am really proud of what we have achieved so far and determined to keep going. 

The RSPB is very proud to be one of the partners behind Nature Bites Back, a new poem by acclaimed poet Vanessa Kisuule, created for National Poetry Day 2026 on 1 October.

Poet Vanessa Kisuule was inspired by Canvey Wick in Essex, a former oil refinery that has become one of the UK's most important wildlife sites. Managed by the RSPB and Buglife, the nature reserve is home to more than 3,200 species.