Blue Mountains rainforest at night with glow-worm light

Bilpin · Greater Sydney · Blue Mountains

You're not in nature.
You are nature.

Hands-on wanders with ecologist Tom Covell. Night walks, hidden-in-plain-sight discoveries, and the kind of curiosity you had before anyone told you to keep your hands clean.

See the wanders Book Tom

Stay curious

Peron's Tree Frog · Tawny Frogmouth · Sugar Glider · Diamond Python · Red-bellied Black · Garden Orb Weaver · Huntsman · Planthopper · Glow Worm · Powerful Owl · Brush-tailed Possum · Blue-tongue Lizard · Bark Beetle · Long-legged Fly · Cumberland Plain · Peron's Tree Frog · Tawny Frogmouth · Sugar Glider · Diamond Python · Red-bellied Black · Garden Orb Weaver · Huntsman · Planthopper · Glow Worm · Powerful Owl · Brush-tailed Possum · Blue-tongue Lizard · Bark Beetle · Long-legged Fly · Cumberland PlainPeron's Tree Frog · Tawny Frogmouth · Sugar Glider · Diamond Python · Red-bellied Black · Garden Orb Weaver · Huntsman · Planthopper · Glow Worm · Powerful Owl · Brush-tailed Possum · Blue-tongue Lizard · Bark Beetle · Long-legged Fly · Cumberland Plain · Peron's Tree Frog · Tawny Frogmouth · Sugar Glider · Diamond Python · Red-bellied Black · Garden Orb Weaver · Huntsman · Planthopper · Glow Worm · Powerful Owl · Brush-tailed Possum · Blue-tongue Lizard · Bark Beetle · Long-legged Fly · Cumberland Plain

Peron's tree frog sitting on Tom's prosthetic hook and torch — Peron's tree frog, on the hook

The manifesto

We didn't come from nature, and we don't visit it on weekends. We never left it.

I've been hooked on nature since long before I had a hook for a hand. I was born without my right hand, but that never once got in the way of turning over logs, chasing lizards, or catching every bug I could get my hands on. Kids do have business touching nature: getting dirty, getting curious, getting close.

Somewhere along the way, most of us started treating nature like a place — a park, a bush track, a nice view. Hooked On Nature exists to undo that.

Meet Tom

The wanders

Four ways to get hooked

All experiences

01 — Day

Nature Wander

The world hiding in plain sight. You learn to find it yourself, not have it pointed out.

1.5 hoursAges 5+

Enter the wander

02 — After dark

Night Wander

Torchlight, frog calls, gliders, and the nightlife most people walk past.

1–2 hoursSpotlights

Step into the dark

Kids on a bug hunt in the forest with Tom

03 — Tiny animals

Bug-Out

Sweep nets, magnifiers, and a hunt for the creatures everyone else steps over.

Parties & schools1–1.5 hours

Hunt the tiny

04 — Super close

Macro Photography

Learn to shoot the tiny world with a camera or the phone in your pocket — insects, light, and patience.

Camera + phone2 hours

Get closer

Don't just visit nature.
Come find out you already are it.Tom Covell · Ecologist

Tom Covell holding a freshwater crocodile while talking with a child

The guide

Tom, in the system

Ecologist, educator, forager, and someone who tries to live this rather than just teach it. I hunt and utilise feral animals to feed my family, return what can't be eaten to the garden, and still climb trees looking for what's actually there.

Through safaris, night walks, and quietly extraordinary places like Cumberland Plain Woodland — easy to overlook if you're only trained to notice roses and daffodils — I take people down the same path I've walked since I was old enough to lift a log.

The full story

Sydney-wideReserves, schools, backyards, cabins

Ages 5+Families, corporates, councils

Night + dayTorchlight, nets, bat detectors

Not a zooYou find it. You keep the story.

On the ground