7 Autumn Activities You Might Not Have Thought About

Autumn gets reduced to the same handful of things every year. Walks, candles, pumpkin patches. And again, fine, all of that is fine.

Most of these activities cost very little or nothing at all.

1. Go foraging, but with a guide

Most people have heard of foraging by now, but very few have actually done it with someone who knows what they're doing. Autumn is when the genuinely useful stuff appears: hedgerow fruits, sloe berries, crab apples, and a surprising range of mushrooms.

Going out alone with a phone app is fine for blackberries. For anything fungal, a guided walk is a much better idea. You'll find them running through the Woodland Trust, local wildlife trusts, and small independent naturalists across the UK from September through November. A half-day session typically costs between £25 and £50, and you usually go home with something you picked yourself.

Once you know where the sloe bushes are in your area, you'll keep going back. Sloe gin takes about six weeks of steeping, which means an October find is ready in time for Christmas.

2. Watch a murmuration

If you've never seen a starling murmuration in person, it's one of those things that genuinely doesn't come across on a screen. Tens of thousands of birds moving together over a reedbed at dusk. It is worth going out of your way for.

The RSPB lists reliable murmuration sites across the UK. Ham Wall in Somerset and Gretna Green in Scotland are two of the most consistent.

They tend to run from November through to February, with the biggest displays usually on cold, still evenings just before dark. Ham Wall has a dedicated starling hotline (07866 554142) that gives daily updates on where the birds are roosting.

3. Try a night walk

A good woodland or moorland path at night in October takes about ten minutes for your eyes to adjust fully. After that, you'll notice things you'd otherwise miss entirely: owls hunting, deer moving through field edges, and a dark sky that summer simply doesn't give you. Most people who do it once go back.

If going alone feels like too much, the British Naturalists' Association and various local wildlife groups run organised night walks. Some are themed around moths, some around nocturnal mammals, and having a guide means you come away knowing what you actually heard rather than guessing.

They're usually free or close to it. Bring a red-filtered torch or lantern for any notes or map-reading.

4. Take up dyeing with natural materials

Autumn produces a wide range of natural dye materials: walnut husks give a deep brown that's almost permanent without a mordant, and onion skins make a warm yellow-gold that's reliable even for complete beginners.

You don't need specialist equipment. A stainless steel pot you don't mind dedicating to the purpose, some undyed wool or cotton, and a mordant like alum from a home-brew shop is enough to start. The rest you can find in library books on botanical dyeing. Jenny Dean's Wild Colour is widely recommended and stocked by many UK libraries.

Most dye baths take two to three hours, which suits the season. The results vary depending on your water, the age of the plant material, and the mordant you use, which means the same recipe rarely produces identical results twice. That unpredictability is most of the appeal.

5. Visit a Victorian cemetery

This is one that sounds odd until you've done it, and then you understand why people go back.

Victorian cemeteries are extraordinary in autumn. The best ones, Highgate in London, Arnos Vale in Bristol, and Glasgow Necropolis.

They also have established trees, well-worn paths, and a level of biodiversity that surprises most visitors. Bats, foxes, kestrels, and in some cases rare lichen species all use spaces that haven't been disturbed in decades. Glasgow Necropolis sits on a hill overlooking the cathedral and has over 3,500 monuments; it's free to enter and open every day.

Many run guided tours in October, some themed around the history of mourning or the notable people buried there. The Friends of Highgate Cemetery Trust runs tours year-round, with ticket proceeds going back into restoration. Arnos Vale runs a regular programme of guided walks and events throughout the year. Both require advance booking.

6. Learn to read a weather chart properly

Not an outdoor activity, but a genuinely useful one for anyone who spends time outside between October and April. The Met Office publishes detailed synoptic charts for free, and understanding what you're looking at, where the fronts are, what a deep low pressure system means for your Saturday, changes how you plan entirely.

The Royal Meteorological Society runs a free online course called Come Rain or Shine on the FutureLearn platform. No prior knowledge is needed, and it covers synoptic charts, depressions, air masses, and how UK weather systems actually work.

The course also teaches you to read cloud cover and wind direction from a chart, which is more useful for planning a long walk than any app.

Once you understand it, you'll use it for the rest of your life.

7. Attend a dark sky event

The UK has several International Dark Sky sites, with more being added. Galloway Forest Park in Scotland was the UK's first, designated in 2009, and is one of the darkest places in Europe. Exmoor was Europe's first International Dark Sky Reserve, designated in 2011. Snowdonia has held dark sky reserve status since 2015.

The Milky Way is still well positioned in October, and the Orionid meteor shower peaks around 21 to 22 October each year, producing up to 20 meteors per hour under good conditions.

Most designated sites have ranger-led events in October and November. Some require booking in advance; most are free or carry a small charge for a guided session. The Go Stargazing website lets you search by location and is updated regularly.

Check what's on within an hour of you before the season slips away. By December the nights are long, but the temperatures make standing in a field considerably less appealing.

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