Nature and Autism – Update

Simon King has just released another podcast – this time interviewing Chris Packham. They talk about autism from 26mins 50secs onwards, and are kind enough to mention my podcast (below) at 30mins 50secs. There’s a solid 10 minutes on poo at the start if that’s your thing…

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, even hearing the sound of a bird’s wings. My conversation with Simon was filmed – because being autistic I felt the need to make it visual to help visual thinkers like me. Please do give it a watch (or a flick through if you don’t feel strong enough for 50 mins of me wittering!). The main podcast page is here and the link to YouTube is here.