Setting off on a glorious sunny but cold morning we felt lucky to find ourselves in the relative calm between the storms Dudley and Eunice. The prospect of Crossbill and Sika unfortunately didn’t materialise but we ambled happily through the trees and had a number of sightings.
Recent heavy rain caused us to stick to the main paths with water filled ditches running alongside filled with Bog Pondweed. One clump of Common Frog spawn was also seen.
 |
| Bog Pondweed © Glynis Payne |
Very early on, a lucky few saw a couple of Lesser Redpoll and then, further on, many of us saw several Coal, Blue and Great Tits; Robins at every turn, a Red Admiral and then a large number of Redwing moving through the trees.
 |
| Redwing © Richard Smith |
Just for a moment we thought we had found our Crossbills on a high clump of pine cones but it turned out to be another Coal Tit digging out the seeds. Still, a lovely sight.
A
Goshawk was glimpsed by David and more sunshine greeted us for our welcome
coffee break among some very old oaks. One huge old pollarded oak attracted
attention and needed five people to hug it! A calculation later estimated it to
be around 300 years old.
 |
| Tree huggers © Andy Skarstein |
We
found some interesting lichen such as a Beard Lichen Usnea sp, Puffball
fungi, Common Polypody in profusion on one ancient oak arm and newly emerging
Foxglove before making our way back.
 |
| Common Polypody © Chris Robinson |
 |
| Stump Puffball © Sue Skarstein |
The final reward came to Chris and Diane as they sighted a Merlin on departing the car park.R&GP
 |
| Our route © Ordinance Survey |