Nature and Autism

It’s well known that a love of animals and the natural world often go together with autism – many of the most famous autistics have made their careers working with animals from Temple Grandin, through Chris Packham to Dara McAnulty. My friend Simon King FLS was kind enough to ask me to talk about my experiences of autism and nature for his podcast, following some articles I’d written for his Frightened Face of Nature naturalist blog. (My blogs can be found here – or a collated set here.)

At first I wasn’t sure I had much to say but reflecting on walking through London in lockdown it struck me how much my autistic hypersensitivity to sight, sound and smell which is generally fairly oppressed by the city enabled me to notice the early signs of nature re-emerging – the birdsong, the plants growing between the paving stones…