Winter Blessings and Beauties, Day 77: Winter Scavenger Hunt

Here's a fun activity for a Winter day: a Scavenger Hunt! Issue a challenge - just to yourself or to a group of friends and/or family - make a list of selected items and go on a hunt for them. It's a great outdoor activity, but it works just as well indoors if the weather is unfavourable. Even in lockdown you could have a Scavenger Hunt in your home and then Skype or Zoom with friends and family to share your results. The great thing about it is that it really challenges your powers of observation and gets you noticing things in your environment that might otherwise go unheeded. It helps you think outside the box and encourages exploration and imagination. For example the photo above is a collage of images that I photographed this afternoon after I set myself a mini-Scavenger Hunt to find and photograph things representing all the colours of the rainbow. Some colours were more of a challenge than others in the Winter landscape, but I think the end result really challenges the idea that Winter is a drab and colourless season.

Winter Blessings and Beauties: Day 77

Winter Scavenger Hunt

There are different ways of doing a Scavenger Hunt. The classic version is to find and bring back with you a selection of objects. But you can also search for less tangible things like a colour or a sound. Or like me you could record your finds as photographs rather than bringing them home with you. Here are a few ideas of things to look for on your Scavenger Hunt:

• You could look for natural objects like a seedpod, a flower, a feather, an interesting pebble, something green, a fallen leaf, a snail shell - or look for specific species such as an oak tree, a robin, a snowdrop, a bramble. 
• Search for things to engage all your senses - something blue, something pretty, something that smells nice, something soft, something prickly, a bird singing, the sound of running water, something that tastes nice.
• Like me, look for things in all the colours of the rainbow - something red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet (you can add more colours to the list if you like!).
• Search for things which evoke a (positive) emotional response - something that makes me happy, something funny, something exciting, something which is my favourite colour, something that reminds me spring is coming, something I love to eat, something that reminds me of my friends, something silly etc.

Good hunting!