Do you want to be that person who is always the first to see that animal hiding in the bush, hear the unusual bird call, see the interesting insect or animal track in the sand, the animal markings on a tree or the beautiful tiny flower that everyone else has walked straight past?

I often hear people saying “but it all looks the same” when travelling through the bush, but the reality is that unlike human made structures, no inch is the same in the natural environment but our ability to detect these differences varies from person to person. We now know from research that people who are better connected with nature are happier, have less stress and anxiety and improved mood. Nature detection is key to nature connection.

Ecologist Rob Richards and the team from It’s Naturally You are offering a very unique program that will significantly improve your sensory detection skills in the bush. The program includes three sessions. Each is a 3 hour (30 min intro and 2.5 hour field based) session, where at each session you will gain new and progressively more advanced skills. You will be amazed at how much your nature detection skills have improved at the end of the three sessions. The three sessions will be run over a number of weeks based on participant preferences.

Increase your nature detection skills by increasing your sensory awareness:

Build your visual skills – spatial awareness/reading the landscape and detecting nature
Build your nature sound detection skills
Increase your olfactory senses (smell and taste) of nature

What you will get:

Documented improvement of your nature detection skills over the 3 sessions (using our unique scoring system)
A Certificate of Achievement
Your own short story on our website of an real detection experience you have had in the bush after the training to demonstrate your improvement.

Our 2025 courses will focus on visual and sound detection skills and will be run at two locations – La Trobe University Wildlife Sanctuary and Jells Park.