Nature | InsideMyNest

14 October 202415 April 2025

Embracing the Autumn Colour Palette in Nature: Tips for Capturing the Season’s Splendour

Autumn fall colour palettes can be found all around us, with inspiration that can be incorporated from the natural world as well as from everyday objects and designs. The most common autumnal tones are warm, despite the briskness of the season. The colours tend towards oranges, reds, yellows, and even a few saturated browns and shades of purples, greens, bronzes and coppers. Altogether, this creates a beautiful warm and glowing palette.

With the right colour mixing and combination, you can even land the perfect balance of tones to create a cosy autumn atmosphere to your designs, whether they be for creating artworks or choosing interior decorations!

Find Autumn Colours in… Nature, of course!

One place to look for autumnal inspiration is, well, going outdoors during autumn! All around the world, fall looks different depending on the local flora, the type of weather to be expected in autumn, and the ways that the environment adapts to that weather. Deciduous trees go dormant over the winter, and the drying up of chlorophyll in the leaves of said trees, often maple or birch, causes them to go yellow, orange, and red, shortly before trying and falling off for the long winter.

However, in areas with more pine trees, for example, autumn might look instead like evergreens and drying pine needles preparing for the winter in their own way. While the palette of reddening leaves is an obvious choice, a less common, but equally vivacious choice is to look at the berries which ripen during autumn, like blackberries, to find tones of blue, purple, and black. With this in mind, you can start to use natural colours of a cooler variety to balance out all those warm shades if you wish.

Autumn Holidays & Festivals

Another place to look for inspiration when it comes to colour selection is holidays from around the world. Many holidays around the fall, from Halloween to Samhain to Hannukah, incorporate glowing lights into their festivities, usually attributed to the fact that, as days grow shorter and nights grow longer around the autumn solstice, the appreciation of light grows accordingly. Because of this, with your more obvious colour choices, you can also try to incorporate the colours of say, a candle wick burning, or the bright glow of fairy lights. Autumn is known mostly for its darkness, but the bright lights which cut through that darkness are often just as iconic, if not more so.

Autumnal Inspired Art

You can also look at artworks with particular colour palettes and similar themes to what you’re interested in, and taking inspiration from the creative choices made by those artists. Here are some quick paintings I have done to test our favourite autumn colour palette…

Autumn fall colour scheme — Fall colours tested with oil paints…

Our Favourite fall colour palette is… Earthy greens & browns, cinnamon, terracotta, burnt orange, mustard yellow, harvest gold & hints of mauve, antique rose & peach blush

Nevertheless, you don’t have to stick to the earthy colours that we have shown here, feel free to take inspiration from other artists too.

Landscape painters, for example, both realistic and figurative in their style, can be a great place to start. For a less realistic option, take a look at Claude Monet’s Impressionist Autumn Effect at Argenteuil, 1873. This painting matches and breaks away from the formula expected by autumn colour palettes, containing both the oranges and yellows of autumn leaves, as well as deep greens of trees yet to turn colours with the season, and the vibrant teal blue of the water reflecting a bright sky.

If you’re looking to take inspiration from a more true-to-life landscape, however, you can look to J. M. W. Turner’s Autumn Morning near Fonthill, which depicts a desaturated fall morning in all of the pastoral Romanticism that Turner is known for, with bare, white-barked trees and dry earth, a dusty sky that seems bright and crisp in the early morning. These two artists, while a good starting point, are not the entire breadth and span of landscape painters, and you should look into some of your own favourite art styles and movements, and see what kind of bold and interesting colour palettes you can create, inspired by their own creations and visions of the living world.

Speaking of taking inspiration from the creations of others, and doing research, one place you can go to for autumnal inspiration is online websites for image aggregation, like Pinterest. By looking for collections, you can either look through Pinterest boards with autumnal inspiration created by others, or create your own inspiration board by looking at the many images uploaded to Pinterest and available for you to use.

By browsing these websites, you can find inspiration in the mundane as well as the natural – find pictures of coffee cups and scarves, outfits and Halloween decorations, freshly baked pies or sweater patterns. All of these contain within them different and unique colour patterns, which can be incorporated to make new and innovative colour palettes utterly unique to your Pinterest board and the details contained within it. Using these boards, you can even sample colours directly and add them to your application of choice, creating your own hand-selected swatches to use however you’d like!

What I hoped to demonstrate with this list is that inspiration can strike anywhere, and anytime, and can come from the most unlikely places. Whether you’re interested in creating artwork of your very own, are in the process of adding colours to designs, or are just trying to have your interior decorations match the seasons, you can find and create inspirations for just the perfect colours by keeping your eyes open and being open to influences from anywhere that you can. You can have your phone on you, snapping pictures as you walk to work to reuse when creating a palette, or you can buy readymade autumnal colour collections to paint with.

You can do research into artists who have made their careers off of depicting landscapes in various seasons, or look into what other enthusiasts have made in the time they have, either one or any combination of the above could be what strikes your fancy in a given moment. Keep your mind open and your eyes sharp to the world around you, and using a combination of both the mundane and the extraordinary, you should be able to create colour palettes for any season, any time of the year!

11 October 202415 April 2025

Exploring the Diverse Shades of Olive Greens: A Short Guide

While people might expect olive to only be the brown-tinted green of olives swaying on the boughs, the colour “olive” can be categorised as anything from a jewel tone, a mud brown-green, to a near black. It also represents the green undertone of black olives, even as they nearly don’t have any colour at all, their sparkling brown is only seen in the right light.

With this being our aim, the main divisions of olive as a colour can be defined as such: olive green, the main baseline colour; olive drab, which is the colour of military uniforms and, despite its name, it’s boring in the least; olivine, a jewel tone of olive named after the mineral silicate that it resembles most; and black olive, a type of olive green that is nearly not green at all.

As you can see, with such a variety of colours for us to use, we should consider palette creation to be a more complex process than it normally would be with only one tone.

Olivine

To begin with the least saturated green, olivine is a type of olive green that can best be described as light shining through olive green.

This is because the mineral that it is named after, the olivine nesosilicate, is naturally somewhat translucent, appearing in nature as what appears to be a type of green glass. Despite its resemblance to more humble glass shards, olivine’s origins come from the earth’s crust, at the upper mantle, ejected with lava and sometimes appearing as “green glass”, which is actually eroded crystals of olivine.

As a colour, this type of olive green has more yellow than the baseline, and can be quite variable – in partial light, it can appear very neutral, but in other light sources, it may be very bright and vivacious.

As a colour, it can be either matched with other shades of light green and grey to create a very neutral palette. Or, in a more interesting play, painted alongside bright oranges and dark reds to evoke greater passion, calling upon its origins in the earth’s mantle.

Olive Green

Moving down the line, we have the baseline olive green, the colour that can be used to create all of the other tones and shades in the list.

Throughout history, olive green can be either associated with peacetime or war – either as the green olive branch representing peace after conflict, as the olive wreath placed on the head of a victor in Greco-Roman times, or as the green of some military uniforms and old fashioned helmets during most of the 20th century.

Playing with this mixed history, and its associations as both a calming and an alarming colour in the cultural mindset, you can incorporate olive green to great effect with all kinds of palettes, either solid, mid-tone reds and oranges, or silk white and eggshell.

A personal favourite is to combine olive green with subtle, desaturated peach, ochre, dusty rose and terracotta. Then to paint using a thick brush to create the illusion of light, with olive green used as the main structure of a branch or a horizon, and the yellow being the areas with harsher angles, the light reflecting off of them.

Olive Drab

Olive drab is our personal favourite. It is named as such not because it is boring, though it can be very dull when combined with other colours without much thought or consideration.

“Drab” is a relatively old term, used in this context to refer to a type of desaturated brown, much like “dun” – olive drab being called that because it is an olive green that has been mixed with light brown to create a darker, more polished green.

With somewhat grey undertones and a darker overtone, olive drab lands at a completely different colour profile than the other olives on the list. While it still goes very well with khaki, sage, brown, and other shades of green, one of the very interesting colours that it can be paired with is magenta, or other types of light purple and violet.

In nature, many green plants have outer leaves with purple edges, including many types of cactuses and succulents, which can be either olive drab, sage green, or light, dusty violet. And often, the three all combine together within the same patch of cacti, or even on different leaves in the same plants. You can use this palette to depict purple fruit on the body of a prickly-pear cactus, or the spiraling leaves on a succulent, dotted with condensation.

ripening olives on branch — *Photo by ROMAN ODINTSOV*

Black Olive

Lastly, we have the olive green that is hardly green at all, but is certainly olive in nature.

Black olive, which is, of course named after the fruit, is closer to a black or a very deep brown, but when viewed in the correct light, you can see all of the green undertones working hard to give it its complex colour. Because of its dark colour, one of the unexpected colour combinations that compliments this colour to great effect, is, well, olive green!

By pairing this colour up with its base colours, it brings out the complexity that it possesses, and reminds the viewer to look closer and appreciate how many colours are within black olive.

For this same reason, you can also use mustard yellow and light shades of cream, or brownish white, to bring out other complex notes within the same colour, coming together to create a very unique colour palette using all the colours that can be found within black olive naturally.

As you can see, olive green is a colour that has many definitions, and even more uses, all depending on the particular tone and shade of it that you’d like to use in your art.

Whether your intent is to use it for interior decoration, for textile art, or for all sorts of painting, traditional or digital, there are a great many things that can, and should be done with it, all evoking their own meanings and attitudes.

9 October 202415 April 2025

24 Free Printable Butterfly Colouring Pages & Outlines

These butterfly printable colouring pages have been hand-drawn and hand-designed by us, and are 100% free for parents, teachers and kids to use. There is a selection of easy to difficult and simple to detailed – suitable from pre-school kids to adults. To download, simply click on the relevant image to open a high resolution PDF, instantly available to print and colour.

We regularly update this page with new designs and templates, so be sure to keep visiting 🙂

Terms: These colouring sheets are not to be uploaded on other websites ‘as they are’; but once coloured in, they can be used for personal and commercial use.

Detailed & Realistic Monarch Butterfly Colouring Pages (Suitable For Adults & Older Children)

Butterflies are one of the ‘prettiest’ insects on planet. Watching them flutter through our garden flowers and then to see them sit on one whilst showing off its unique colours and patterned wings is one of the most beautiful and intricate sites of nature. Perhaps that is why it’s also so relaxing to colour them in 🙂

How to draw a butterfly butterflies nature journal

Difficult detailed realistic butterfly on flower coloring page — *Download PDF – Detailed Butterfly On Flower Branch Colouring Page*

Detailed monarch butterfly coloring page free printable — *Download PDF – Detailed Monarch Butterfly Colouring Page & Pattern Background*

Monarch butterfly coloring page — *Download PDF – Realistic Butterfly Colouring Page*

Butterfly garden scene coloring page detailed difficult for adults — *Download PDF – Butterfly Garden Scene Colouring Page*

detailed butterfly garden scene coloring page — *Download PDF – Detailed Butterfly Garden Scene*

Cute, Simple & Basic Butterfly Colouring Pages (Suitable for Pre-School & Primary School Kids)

Simple butterfly coloring page Daisy flowers — *Download PDF – Butterfly with Daisy Flowers Wings*

kids butterfly coloring page pretty with hearts — *Download PDF – Simple Butterfly with Heart Wings Colouring Page*

Butterflies With Flowers 🌸 Colouring Pages

Butterfly with flowers coloring page outline free printable — *Download PDF – Butterflies & Flowers Colouring Page*

Butterflies With Rainbow 🌈 Colouring Pages

Butterflies with Hearts 💕 Colouring Pages

Butterflies and hearts coloring page free printable — *Download PDF – Butterflies & Hearts Colouring Page*

Butterfly with Geometry, Mandala, Paisley, Damask & Other Patterns Colouring Pages

butterfly coloring page with patterns — *Download PDF – Butterfly with Square Tiles Colouring Sheet*

butterfly coloring page free printable — *Download PDF – Butterfly with Stripes Colouring Sheet*

Butterfly Outline (Multiple)

Butterfly outline free printable — *Download PDF – Butterfly Outline (5 Per Page)*

Free printable butterfly outline — *Download PDF – Butterfly Outline (5 Per Page)*

Free printable butterfly outline multiple — *Download PDF – Butterfly Outline (4 Page)*

Butterflies and flowers outline coloring page — *Download PDF – Butterflies & Daisy Flowers Outline Colouring Page*

*Download PDF – Butterfly Outline (4 Per Page)*

Butterfly and hearts coloring page free printable — *Download PDF – Butterfly & Hearts Outline Colouring Page*

Multiple butterflies coloring page free printable outline — *Download PDF – Butterflies Outline Colouring Page (12 Per Page)*

Butterfly and stars coloring page — *Download PDF – Butterflies & Stars Outline Colouring Sheet*

Butterfly Outline (Large – 1 Per Sheet)

Butterfly large outline template printable coloring page — *Download PDF – Butterfly Large Outline Template – 1 Per Page*

Butterfly Outline (Medium – 2 Per Sheet)

Butterfly outline template free printable — *Download PDF – Butterflies Outline – 2 Per Page*

Butterfly Outline (Small – 4 Per Sheet)

*Download PDF – Butterflies Outline – 4 Per Page*

11 September 202415 April 2025

The Allure of Burnt Orange: Discovering Nature’s Vibrant Colour Palette

While burnt orange is not a standard colour with a defined appearance, it is widely agreed that it is a dark rustic orange colour, with a distinct auburn appearance. This is important to take into consideration when incorporating it into a colour palette.

This dark orange contains shades of brown and brown-black, making it more dramatic than the standard choice for orange shades. Because of this dramatic, yet naturalistic, colour choice, it can be a bold choice for all sorts of design decisions; making it a project worthy of great consideration before one jumps into matching and contrasting it with other colours on the canvas.

close up of orange autumn leaves on black background

So, what are some of the uses of burnt orange, and how do you design a palette around it?

Autumnal treasures, such as leaves, pine cones, wooden sticks, etc., while being more brown and copper-toned than the usual use of burnt orange, shares many similar traits to it, such as being a more destaurated and relaxed form of orange than, say, most citrus peels.

Other places where you might easily find burnt oranges includes the fur of some breeds of domestic cats, like many Abyssinian cats, who have a solid coat ranging from a coppery colour to a light brown, but largely appear in much the same shade of burnt orange as the more agreed upon uses of the term.

Other animals that have burnt orange coat colours include tigers, Monarch butterflies, Irish setters, and, a type of coat variation of red foxes known as the “cross” fox. These foxes have a coat that is dark orange on the back and sides, which fades into a deep black on their faces and legs. These foxes exemplify the first natural pairing of burnt orange, that which is found in almost all of the animals we’ve listed – full-saturation black.

As used in striping for tigers and pattern borders on the wings of butterflies, a touch of black frames burnt orange and makes it seem all the more bold and eye-catching.

deciduous plant with withering yellow leaves

Burnt orange is a very autumnal colour, meaning that it is just as easy to spot outdoors as it is in the world of domesticated animals, although it largely depends on the time of year.

In early autumn, most of the colours that are more widely seen tend towards the warmer end of the spectrum, with bright yellows, saturated oranges, and vivid reds as the leaves begin to lose their colour in preparation for the trees to go into hibernation for the winter, conserving their energy.

However, if one is to look at the same foliage again later in the season, they’d find colours much more like our own burnt orange, with the leaves having grown more desaturated as the season progresses, the yellows more mottled, the reds having a distinct brown undertone, and the oranges looking far more, well, burnt.

At the same time as this, you can find burnt orange colours in all kinds of gourds and pumpkins – not so much the sugar pumpkins you make into pie, but many ornamental pumpkins, who even come in shades of vivacious red in addition to the more aged, burnt-sugar orange that we regard in this colour palette right now. Knowing this, late autumn and early winter is the perfect time to go out and look for autumn treasure hunting and colour inspiration in the natural world.

So, with these sources of inspirations in mind, what are some colours that go well with burnt orange?

Burnt orange, like all shades of orange, tends to be a good match with shades of purple. Because burnt orange is a shade of orange with rather low saturation, this gives you a lot of flexibility in terms of what types of purple you’d like to pair it with.

For example, you can use a soft shade of mauve, also with low saturation, in order to balance out the drama or burnt orange with a more gentle, soft-edged colour. Conversely, you can lean into the theatrics by using a shade of dark, full-bodied plum, creating a palette with high contrast but also a throughline of dark tones.

Other than purple, however, you have the run of the mill when it comes to colour pairings. Some like to put burnt orange in an array of like-type colours, particularly warm tones, in order to complete an autumnal colour palette.

For this effect, you would like to choose other shades of red and yellow with low saturation, since using a high-contrast colour might take away from the focus on burnt orange.

Another natural pairing is to combine this dark orange tone with sage, ochre detailing and cream, similar in pattern to that of autumnal treasure. This combination shows especially well in textile art, as if often the case with burnt orange.

With all of these possible combinations in mind, it would be redundant to say that burnt orange pairs readily with other colours, and that it can be used to create a variety of different moods and atmospheres.

It is a very forgiving colour, coming together with others to make interesting images no matter what, and so long as you respect it as the centre of the palette, it should be a wonderful addition to your next creative endeavour.

9 September 202415 April 2025

The Peach Spectrum: Discovering the Role of Peach Colour in Flora and Fauna

Peach shows up in many places in the world, both through flora and fauna, giving you much room to explore when trying to construct a peach colour palette to use in the creation of art and design.

The origin of the name “peach” is obvious – it comes from the colour of peaches, which often has a slightly yellow, somewhat cream-colored undertone, and a subtle texture cause by the fine fuzz that covers the exterior of the peach.

This, in addition to the pink flowers that most stonefruit, like peach and cherries, have, it is easy to imagine why peach has come to be such an iconic colour throughout art history, as well as being such a common choice for neutral interior scenes, like its use in drapery or carpets.

From summer stonefruit to blooms in the spring, to even the wings of elephant hawk-moths, peach is no rare sight in our world. However, just because it is a commonly-used colour doesn’t mean that it is forgettable, and it is through looking for inspiration for a peach-centric colour palette that we can start to appreciate it most.

Peach blossoms are often quite small, and come from small-bodied trees, like cherries, almonds, and some cultivars of plum.

This subtle shade of peach straddles the line between neutral and warm, having some orange shades, and even a little yellow and blush, in addition to the obvious terracotta within it. Traditionally, dusty rose blush and sage is used as the complementary colour to peach, though this is heavily dependent on the shade of peach, and how saturated the colour combination is.

Using peach flowers in gardening is usually used to give the garden a softer and feminine touch. Like all reds and purple colours, peach is a colour that highly attracts pollinators, such as butterflies and bees.

When using peach flowers as inspiration for a colour palette, it is a good idea to lean into the subtleties and gentle shades used in plants, like incorporating the bare, dark-brown branches of peonies and roses in full bloom to contrast the tone of peach, or to outline the peach interior of flowers with delicate shades of white, and the framing of olive green leaves.

Other than flora, one can also look to the world of animals for inspiration. While most peach birds – flamingos, rosefinches, and galah parrots, for example, use varieties of pink that is far too bright to be considered peach, there are just as many that fit the pill perfectly to be used as inspiration for a colour palette.

For one example, the subtle use of peach in species of tropical fruit doves, like the Jambu fruit dove, which has only a slight blush of peach pink on its face and chest, framed with a bright white stomach and a deep, verdant green coat across its back and wings. This, along with the detailing of black around the underside of its light orange beak, creates an incredibly, seldom-used peach colour palette that balances out perfectly, and can be a very unique choice when deciding the colours of, say, an outfit, or a painting.

Rather than using a bright pink as a base, like other birds do, fruit doves typically only have small detailing in pink, making the colour a pop that is eye-catching and iconic, identifiable to other doves of the same species without risking them being seen by predators from above. In the same way, using this peach pink in art as a subtle touch to centre a piece makes it identifiable, without risking it becoming an eyesore.

However, if birds and flowers aren’t the use of peach pink that you were looking for, look no further than the field of precious stones. While often not as appreciated as glossier or more rare rocks, the opaque exterior of the peach opal is an incredible sight, having a brightness that can be used to add life to a painting or as an addition to a multimedia project.

Similarly, rose quartz is a precious gemstone long gone underappreciated for its relative accessibility, as compared to pink diamonds or pink pearls, but still as a slightly-yellow undertone that can be very inspiring for creating a peach colour palette based on it.

Lastly, the look of rhodonite is beyond compare, specifically because of its imperfections. When found naturally, pink rhodonite is a pink and peach colour palette all on its very own. With veins of jet black framing gentle pinks and reddish whites, often being created in the earth as uneven, asymmetrical collections of edges and spikes that challenge our perceptions of peach and pink as gentle or passive.

With flowers, birds, and rocks, among many other occurrences of peach in the natural world, there are many unique places from which to draw inspiration for a peach colour palette, some of which have long gone under-appreciated.

When incorporating it into your artwork, there are hardly any mediums that wouldn’t make for a good choice, but some might be better suited than others.

Because of how peach readily flows into other colours, both warmer pinks and oranges, as well as whites and greys, and even yellows if used properly, watercolour is the natural choice.

For a unique option, I’d even recommend experimenting with watercolour on silk, especially because of how the ecru colour of raw silk compliments peach. However, it is also a colour that can be used well in digital painting, since digital programs give you the option to experiment with colours and saturation more easily than traditional forms of painting, giving you more control and flexibility when it comes to the use of peach without it becoming too bright.

Regardless of the medium you choose to go with, remember the ways that peach is incorporated into different colour palettes in the world around you, and the many uses it has both for blending in and standing out, and you should be on the right track already.

9 September 202415 April 2025

The Subtle Beauty of Winter: Colours That Define the Season

A winter wonderland colour palette tends to be cold in nature, as obviously implied by the nature of that season. So if those are the colours you are looking for, whether it is for designing the interior decorations of your home, sitting down to start a new art project, or organising a special occasion that is within the winter season, a winter wonderland colour palette can be a wonderful place to base your work around – especially since it lends so well to minimalism and quiet subtlety.

The most commonplace approach to cold winter tones tend to be whites with a base in blue, deep blacks that veer towards purple, and greens that fade into brown, with the occasional splash of yellow or violet for contrast. This can be as universal as you’d like it to be, being a palette that goes well with traditionally-painted pastoral scenes, brash abstracts, and even digital logos and minimalist designs. Whichever avenue you choose, the name of the game is subtlety.

A good place to start when looking for inspiration is to look at the world around you during winter. Not all places get cold the same way, and it’s a mistake to think that going for the colours of snow and icicles is your only choice when creating a winter colour palette.

For example, if you live in a temperate environment, your winters might be gloomy and stormy, with lots of greenery and fog – a colour palette inspired by such a clime lends itself best to bluish-tinted greys, saturated greens, and mysterious shades of black to draw the eye to particular locations.

However, if you live, say, in a dry desert, winters, short and brief as they are, comparatively, are more often windy and dry, with yellowing vegetation going into hibernation, and cold mornings cut with bright sunlight. A winter colour palette in this case could be composed mostly of yellows and browns, especially if employing a desaturated and bluish undertone, which gives the whole scene a cold and nostalgic feeling.

When taking inspiration from the real world, you don’t have to limit yourself to what is the most classical interpretation of winter; the world is full of variations, and so should your palettes be.

Another place to look for colour inspiration is online colour palette generators, like Coolors.co! Many of these websites allow you to input various conditions for what palette you’re looking for, often by starting out with a standard set of randomly-selected colours that compliment each other, and then allowing you to choose various shades and tones of those colours, and to continue exploring from that point on.

Some of these websites even allow you to browse trending colour palettes, so you can search around to see what wintery palettes are already popular now, or if you’d like to start out with a colour that’s familiar to you and then branch out from there, that’s also an option easily available to you. With these online options, you can easily save your swatches, or your individual colour choices, so that you have them on hand whenever you start a new project, and don’t have to start completely over from scratch as soon as a new idea strikes.

Another resource online for colour inspiration is online photo databases, like Unsplash and Pinterest. Pinterest gives you the option of looking through themed boards created by other users, allowing you to get right into soaking in the inspiration without having to aggregate aesthetics yourself, or you can use other boards and existing photos as a springboard for creativity, either to create your own winter-themed collection, full of all the fairy lights and snow-peaked hills as you please, or to go directly to designing your project by selecting the right colours from these photos.

The main appeal of Unsplash, unlike Pinterest, is that all of the pictures on Unsplash come from stock and free to use collections, meaning that if you find an image that you particularly like, you can incorporate it into your own art, without having to pay any additional fees. While this is limited in its scope, you can use these pictures to colour match and create a palette from the existing colours, or to study the ways that light and shadow interact using the colours within them as inspiration for your winter colour palette.

Yet another good place to look for wintery themes and cool colour tones is to look at artworks, particularly those of landscapes. Vincent Van Gogh’s Starry Night has some very interesting cityscapes, depicting dark blue water and the warm, golden glow of stars and city lights reflecting off of them, or his humble, snowy scenes like Snow-Covered Field with a Harrow (after Millet), or Wood Gatherers in the Snow, 1884, which depict winter in all its colours, rather than just the expected ones, including shades of greenish white, dry browns, and even yellow tones in the sky, turning copper green in the saturated scene.

Looking at the season through the eyes of other artists gives you a window into a whole new vision of familiar colours, since no two people see colours exactly the same way, and what would normally be a bland scene becomes vivid and refreshing, perfect for you to take inspiration from and make your very own.

Your perfect winter wonderland colour palette can come from a wide variety of sources, ideas, and toolsets. Using the tools given to you online to select, experiment, and organise colour palettes is a gift that can be invaluable when planning your next project, and observation is a key part of understanding colour theory.

With all that can be said about warm colours versus cool colours, the colours that make up winter palettes come very naturally to most artists – the main crux is to use those colours correctly, pair them in ways that are more complementary and lend well to the quiet subtlety of the season.

Winter can be bold and brash, coming down hard and cold, but it can also be the gentle turning of the year, the quiet susurrus of a rabbit moving through snow, hidden in the drybrush.

6 September 202415 April 2025

What Do Blue Tits Eat? Understanding Their Natural & Human-Offered Diet

In this article, we will get to know blue tits and take a closer look at what they eat in the wild. We will also discuss some of the benefits that these birds get from eating different types of food and many more. Keep on reading!

What is a Blue Tit?

Blue tits are small songbirds that can be found in woodlands and gardens. They are straightforward to recognise with their blue and yellow plumage. The male and female birds look very similar, but the males usually have brighter plumage.

These birds are not migratory, which means that they will stay in the same area all year round. However, they will move to lower altitudes in the winter when the weather gets colder.

What Do They Eat?

The diet of a blue tit consists mainly of insects. They will also eat spiders, small lizards, and snails. In the winter, when food is scarce, they will also eat seeds and nuts.

Blue tits are known to be acrobatic birds. This means that they are very good at catching insects in mid-flight. They will also search for food in trees and on the ground.

They have been known to eat up to 200 caterpillars a day! This is because they need a lot of energy to stay warm in the cold winter months.

Some of the insects that blue tits eat include:

Caterpillars
Moths
Beetles
Flies
Aphids

How Does the Diet of a Blue Tit Vary from Region to Region?

The diet of a blue tit can vary depending on the region that they live in. In some areas, there might be more caterpillars available, while in other areas there might be more flies. This is because different insects are more common in different parts of the world.

Do Blue Tits Eat Other Birds?

No, blue tits do not eat other birds. They are too small to take down another bird. A lot of people think that they are carnivorous and feed on other birds, but this is not true. Blue tits mostly eat insects and seeds. This means that they are omnivores and not predators.

How Do They Get Their Food?

Blue tits use their beaks to catch insects in mid-flight. They will also search for food on the ground and in trees.

In the winter, when food is scarce, blue tits will also eat seeds and nuts. They will use their beaks to crack open the shells of nuts.

The Benefits of Eating Different Types of Food

Eating a varied diet has many benefits for blue tits. It helps them to get the nutrients that they need to stay healthy and produce healthy offspring. A varied diet also helps them to survive in different conditions and to adapt to changes in their environment.

Eating a diet that is rich in insects also has many benefits for blue tits. Insects are a good source of protein, which is essential for the growth and development of young birds. Insects are also a good source of fat, which helps blue tits to stay warm in the cold winter months.

Tips on How You Can Help Blue Tits in Your Backyard

There are many things that you can do to help blue tits in your backyard.

Put up a bird feeder: Bird feeders are a great way to provide food for blue tits and other birds. You can buy a bird feeder or make your own.
Plant native plants: Native plants are an important source of food for blue tits. They will eat the insects that live on these plants.
Provide nesting boxes: Nesting boxes are an excellent approach to providing shelter for blue tits. You can buy a nesting box or make your own.
Reduce the use of pesticides: Pesticides can be harmful to blue tits and other birds. Try to reduce the use of pesticides in your garden.
Keep your cat indoors: Cats can be a major predator of blue tits. Keeping your cat indoors can help to protect them.
Create a wildlife garden: Attracting blue tits and other birds is easy with a wildlife garden.
Join a local conservation group: Many groups work to protect blue tits and other birds. Joining one of these groups is a fantastic way to help.

What Else Do We Know About Blue Tits

Blue tits are very curious birds. They are often seen exploring houses and gardens in search of food.
They are also known for their acrobatic abilities. They can hang upside down from branches to reach insects.
Blue tits are found in Europe, Asia, and North Africa.
The scientific name for a blue tit is Cyanistes caeruleus.
They are around 12 cm in length and have a wingspan of 20 cm.
The average lifespan of a blue tit is around 9 years.
Blue tits are social birds and often live in small groups.
The male and female blue tits look the same. The only way to tell them apart is by their behaviour. Male blue tits are more aggressive than females and often chase other birds away from their territory.
Females usually have a brighter blue colour on their heads than males. This is thought to be a way of attracting mates.
Blue tits are not currently endangered. However, the use of pesticides and the loss of habitat could be a threat to their populations in the future.
They are known to be very intelligent and they have good memories. This means that they can remember where they have found food in the past and they will go back to these places to look for food again.
Blue tits are also known to be very playful. They have been known to play with insects before they eat them. They will also play with small objects such as leaves and twigs.

4 September 202415 April 2025

The Birdwatcher’s Guide: Ideal Locations for Spotting Dunnock Birds

Dunnocks are very shy and timid little passerine birds that are found throughout the British Isles. If you have walked in an area with hedgerows, you might have seen a little brown bird chirping around. More likely than not, you may have even mistaken it for a house sparrow. For all you know, it could have been an amber-listed bird called a dunnock. If you want to know more about where most dunnocks are in the UK, then you might want to continue reading.

About Dunnocks

Unless you look closely, it can be hard to tell a dunnock and a house sparrow apart because their physical differences are close to indistinguishable. The two weigh almost the same and display the same colours – warm tones and gray.

The dunnock’s scientific name is Prunella modularis, while the house sparrow’s scientific name is Passer domesticus. Right off the bat, we know that one and the other do not belong in the same family, let alone the same order. Although the dunnock is also known as the “hedge sparrow,” it is not considered a sparrow. Instead, it belongs to a family called the Accentors. Its name literally means little brown bird as it was derived from Old English.

Its length is 14-15 cm with a wingspan of 19-21 cm. Its weight usually ranges from 16-25 grams. When you see one from afar, its colour appears to be just brown, but when you get a closer look, you’ll see that it has a gray head and chest with some black streaks on the wings. Compared to the house sparrow, its bill is thinner and pointier.

Dunnocks feed on small invertebrates such as insects and some arachnids like ants and spiders. However, during the winter season, they feed themselves with berries and seeds.

Where To Spot Dunnocks in the UK

Almost 2.5 million pairs of dunnocks are found in the UK according to the team at BBC Wildlife Magazine. Currently, their conservation status in the UK is Amber which means that this species is of moderate concern in terms of its extinction in Europe. With The Wildlife and Countryside Act, these species are protected and are naturally found in habitats like woodlands, farmlands, grasslands, and in urban and suburban areas. With this being said, let’s map out where Dunnocks are found all over the United Kingdom.

1. Woodlands

When geographers attempt to describe a forest with trees that do not overlap, they call it forest woodlands. Sometimes, the woodlands are found in between two different ecosystems. As a forest, woodlands are full of trees and have an open space that provides the perfect environment for invertebrates, plants, and birds.

Let us put our minds into the dunnocks. As we have learned from our biology classes, one of the core themes of the subject is reproduction. Species reproduce. Birds need nests for them to lay their eggs and raise their little ones. These species usually make their nests in trees and bushes. So, of course, as dunnocks, they want the best for their offspring. They need an environment where there are a lot of possible locations to build a nest. Let’s also remember that woodlands are an environment where insects thrive, and insects are a huge portion of the dunnocks’ diet.

The latest woodlands statistics produced by Forest Research stated that the United Kingdom has 3.24 million hectares of woodland. They can be found all over England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland. So, if you were looking to see dunnocks for yourself, you can go to the North of England to places like Chesire, Cumbria, County Durham, Lancashire, Northumberland, and Yorkshire. You can also find them in the Midlands like West Midlands County, Shropshire, Staffordshire, Warwickshire, Worcestershire, and others. They can also be found in the East and Southeast of England with places like Essex, Bedfordshire, Suffolk, and Norfolk, and Buckinghamshire, Kent, Sussex, and Surrey respectively. There are also some in the southwest.

Some of the places where dunnocks can be found in Scotland are Angus, Argyll and Bute, Dumfries and Galloway, Fife, Stirling, and some other places in Scotland. There are also some in places in Wales like Caerfyrddin, Conwy, Gwynedd, Powys, and more. Parts of Northern Ireland also have Dunnocks around them.

2. Grasslands

A grassland is literally what it sounds like. A land full of open areas of grass, and sometimes with a few trees scattered around. A grassland is maintained with a low precipitation rate, wildland fires, and animal grazing. According to the website of Woodland Trust, 40% of the United Kingdom is covered by grasslands. So, you can literally find them anywhere in the UK.

Grasslands are a suitable environment for dunnocks. They feel safe and secure in this environment making it ideal for them to build their nests. A lot of insects also thrive in this habitat which makes hunting for food a lot easier.

If you are looking to find a dunnock in a grassland area in the United Kingdom, some of the many grasslands include Angel and Greyhound Meadow in Oxford, Beltingham River Shingle, Berryhill Fields, Brotheridge Green Nature Reserve, Burnfoot River Shingle, and Wydon Nabb, and Christ Church Meadow in Oxford. There are also Dunsdon National Nature Reserve, Hollybed Farm Meadows, Boynton Moss, Mill Meadows in Henley-on-Thames, Mottey Meadows, and North Meadow in Cricklade. Dunnocks can also be found in Port Meadow in Oxford, Portway Hill, Pulborough Brooks, Rackenford and Knowstone Moors, Runnymede, Warneford Meadow, Whitelee Moor, and Wolvercote Common.

3. Farmlands

We all know what a farm looks like unless you have been living in the big cities your whole life. Farmland is a piece of land where you can find livestock being raised and food grown. Most of them have the equipment to help farmers with their work. It is dedicated to doing the agricultural processes for food production and other crops.

With a place where growing food and plants is the main priority, species will definitely thrive here, including dunnocks. With the amount of food being produced, the habitat is enough for these adult birds to provide for their offspring. On farmlands, there are also trees where fruits grow. So, the creation of their nests is easy. Considering farmlands as a diverse habitat, dunnocks will absolutely enjoy their stay here.

Farmlands cover 72% of the United Kingdom, and just like grasslands, you can find them anywhere, especially in rural locations. The farmlands in the UK measure 17.6 million hectares, and the UK measures about 24.2 million hectares. So, imagine that you can drive a little bit to a rural area wherever you are in the UK to hunt for the amber-listed dunnock birds.

4. Urban and suburban areas

Aside from the locations we have talked about above, dunnocks can also be seldomly seen flying around urban and suburban areas anywhere in the United Kingdom, especially with very dense vegetation. These areas may be close to the habitats we discussed earlier. So, if you’re lucky enough to be in an area close to where dunnocks thrive, then you can just go outside and look for the little brown birds.

Conclusion

In the UK, you can find the dunnocks all year round in areas like woodlands, grasslands, and farmlands, and rarely in urban and suburban areas. They can be found in the North, East, Southeast, and Midlands of England. They can also be seen in some parts of Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland.

The amber-listed birds can be found in places with rich vegetation and a diverse ecosystem. For them to lay their eggs and feed their offspring, they prefer places where they can build their nests and where they can get lots of insects and seeds as their food. If you’re in an area that has a lot of trees, bushes, and other vegetation, you might be able to spot one of these little birds!

4 September 202415 April 2025

The Importance of Eco-Friendly Packaging for a Greener Planet

The damages caused to our precious planet by humankind are seen today like never before. The demands from industrial and economic development are putting increasing pressure on many of the world’s precious natural resources that have finite availability.

Producing eco-friendly packaging material uses both energy and raw material resources. Since many businesses use packaging on a daily basis, it is important that the packaging is manufactured using biodegradable or recyclable materials in order to minimise the use of new resources and reduce the carbon footprint. Sustainably-sourced and biodegradable packaging not only improves our future, but directly impacts our present to a positive extent, helping to facilitate an environment of responsibility, ethical business, and a community of positive impact and hope for a better future.

curated collage bits from Inside My Nest

Our obligation to use sustainable, eco-friendly packaging, ecologically-sound packaging is about more than just our obligation to the free market, to enterprise and merchandising, but to one another and the world which we live in.

Plastic waste pollutes our world in a way that is eminently visible, both in the grand scale of remaining in environments for centuries, and also the small, everyday woes of living in a world contaminated by microplastics and trash. Fishing waste and packaging can be found nearly everywhere, tangling in foliage and in the stomachs of animals, posing hidden risks for playing children and even becoming microscopic particles that we breathe.

One way of reducing this omnipresent risk and contributing to a more pleasant environment is to use more biodegradable packaging materials, like compostable wraps, beeswax cellophane, and even plastic-appearing bags that dissolve in water, made from starch. These solutions often pose minimal adjustments, and, with little expense to the companies that employ them, greatly improve the lives of their customers and manufacturers alike.

We all depend on the health of the natural world, whether directly or indirectly, and so we have an obligation to keep it healthy ourselves. Many factors contribute to the health of our environment, including the burning of fossil fuels, deforestation for land usage, and, not the least of which, the long-term effects of waste materials and our inability to incorporate widespread solutions for the disposal and handling of packaging waste.

While much has been undertaken by the consumer, using reusable fabric bags and recycling plastics whenever possible, much still has to be done on the part of the manufacturer, in order for these changes to have long-lasting positive influences. With the reach and influence large companies have that individuals sadly do not possess, a global move among companies towards biodegradable and reusable materials in their packaging, which consume fewer non-renewable resources to create and do not permanently alter the biosphere, can be a massive positive effect on the health and happiness of the world as a whole. While such futures seem abstract and nebulous as we are right now, this change is more possible today than ever.

Every day, new technologies are being created and implemented, becoming cheaper and less energy-costing to bring into our world. The idea of using materials that are eco-friendly, biodegradable, and even compostable, is not only possible and cost-efficient, but convenient. We can hardly expect new packaging to take the form of paper straws that dissolve as soon as you use them, but rather, in many cases, new, eco-friendly alternatives to plastics and contaminants are just as sturdy and usable as their outdated counterparts.

Looking at the near future, it is more believable now than ever that it will be a time of responsible technological innovation. After all, if we do not begin to innovate now, it will only become harder to do in the future we create without these changes.

4 September 202415 April 2025

8 Natural (& Humane) Ways To Stop Slugs & Snails From Eating Your Garden

Finding slugs or snails eating your lovely garden can be a nightmare. How can something that moves so slowly do so much damage? All right, that’s a rhetorical question. Hardly anyone ponders that philosophically. Rather, we’re more interested in how to bar the little creatures from our poor defenseless plants.

There are a number of strategies, and most of them are simple and readily available. We have found that it’s more effective to combine them. In that way, if there’s a breach of one method, others will remain in place. The main thing is that we want to avoid poison. Other wild animals find slugs and snails delicious, and it would be very rude to hasten their demise as well.

1. Practice companion planting

Some plants have natural pesticides that are offensive to slugs. Astrantia, for example, has a scent that slugs don’t like. Commonly known as Masterwort, this is in the celery family and makes a nice ground cover with lovely blooms on long stalks. Snails also avoid pungent herbs such as Rosemary, Anise, Wormwood and Rue.

2. Deny cover to molluscs

Snails and slugs love to loiter beneath bricks, logs and garden furniture. Remove such shelter or make a base of pea gravel for a more uneven surface. Allow access for natural predators such as song thrushes, hedgehogs, newts, slow worms and toads.

3. Create a prickly barrier

Spread a ring of crushed eggshells, sharp sand, thorny cuttings (such as Rose prunings) or even pine needles around plants you want to protect. Anything that will be uncomfortable to a slug will do. Keep a watch, though, because rain will tend to wash away some materials and your perimeter will need to be refreshed.

4. Slip-sliding away

If your plants live in pots, spray or coat the sides to make a slippery surface that slugs and snails can’t climb. Vegetable oil will do nicely. Just ensure that whatever you use is non-toxic.

5. A shocking development

Copper tape supposedly delivers a small electric shock to a trespassing slug. That theory is debatable, however, or else the snail just likes the buzz. However, copper sulfate has been used against aquarium and pond snails for years. They hate the taste. The most common width of copper tape doesn’t present enough of a barrier to a hungry snail, and they slime right over it on the way to their prized leafy snacks.

Look for copper tape that’s wide enough (more than 4cm) and has a high enough percentage of copper alloy to give the little creatures a really bad taste. Electric guitar insulating tape would be ideal. Wrap it round a pot or lay it on the ground near your lovely plants.

6. Trap them, Or hunt them down, Whatever works

Pick a shady, damp spot and leave several old lettuce leaves or some cat food kibbles. When the slugs gather at their unexpected treat, scoop them up and throw them in the compost or garden bin. You may be surprised at the number of night visitors caught by this method. Also, take night walks in your garden to catch them as they move about.

7. The nematode controversy

Some people swear by the use of nematodes for slug control. Others swear at them. Tiny roundworms, nematodes are slug parasites. As such, one would think they might be the perfect solution: Nearly hidden (exclusively underground), no chemicals, seemingly no harm to other animals. However, they have certain drawbacks. Nematodes take a long time to get down to work – 2 to 8 weeks. Keep the garden damp until they work themselves into the ground (how can you tell if you can barely see them?). They only affect the common garden slug. Spanish slugs and all snails are unaffected. Large garden slugs laugh at nematodes. Nematodes are not long-lived, therefore the colony must be resupplied. It can get pricey.

By the time 8 weeks have passed and you still have nightly marauders chomping on your salad greens, you may be tempted to season them with salt in desperation! Eek! But hang fire, throwing salt is not only cruel to them but it isn’t good for the plants either.

8. The Most Natural Way: Work with the food chain

Last but not least, slugs and snails are born to be food for larger animals. Allow that to happen. And chickens also relish slugs, whilst making nice pets. Guinea fowl do the job, and provide property security with their alarm services. In addition, Henrietta Hen will control grasshoppers and, if she feels like it, gift you an egg or two every day or so. Win-win!