TEENAGE FIX

Next time you’re scanning your local patch for wildlife, keep an eye out for one of Britain’s rarest creatures. If you’re lucky, you might glimpse a shy bittern through dense reeds, or a hen harrier above a windswept moor. But according to research published last year, one species you’re unlikely to encounter is the ‘less-spotted teenager’.

The results might not surprise parents – but they were unexpected for many scientists. “The assumption was, basically, that if you connected [children], you’d have a connected adult – that it’s quite linear,” explains Dr Joelene Hughes, RSPB principal conservation scientist and lead author of the 2019 paper, a collaboration with the University of Essex.

The study – which analysed survey responses from participants aged 5 to 75 years, using the Nature Relatedness Scale (NR-6) and Connection to Nature Index (CNI) – revealed that connectedness to nature plummets from a high among younger children to a sharply defined nadir in the mid-teen years (about 16, depending on gender and measure used), then rises again into late teens, before levelling off in their 20s. This echoes Natural England research, also published in 2019, showing that positive