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An hours more...

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It has happened! We have had the Spring Equinox but the real milestone is when the clocks change and you get that jump in usable daylight! It not only means that we have more daylight but it also signals the start of the guided walk season for us and also route describing and checking for me. Its great getting out in the countryside at this time of year: the blossom is out and the leaves are growing again, and the lambs are hopping around the fields. It seems that over the last couple of weeks nature has kick-started itself! That is one of my favourite pivotal moments in the year, when the countryside comes back to life in what seems like an instant. When the blossom is out is one of the best times to walk the South-West Coastpath, this was taken on the section between Bude and Crackington Haven.       Birds are still feeling the cold enough to come into gardens. This Blue Tit quite happily sat and had his picture taken! Even just walking around our local village you
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Urban Strolls...

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As someone who has spent their entire life living in the countryside I have always loved country villages and towns and have always shied away from urban areas but in recent years as I have been working in London more and more and I have discovered a new love for urban areas and their hidden secrets. I have discovered that even in central London you can find small oases of tranquility and greenery and that you needn't leave a town to watch Herons collecting nesting materials and listen to nothing more than running water! A Grey Heron ( Ardea cinerea ) fishing in Central London. There is nothing more beautiful than walking along the River Thames as it bends around Richmond-Upon-Thames and Kew Gardens or back towards Hampton Court... you can be in the middle of Kingston and never even notice it! With such a vast amount of green areas within the reach of an Oyster Card there is no excuse now for anyone not to get out and enjoy nature! The view down towards the Thame
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Happy Birds....

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Now is the time of the year when all the small birds come into gardens and gorge themselves on the offerings left out. Our garden is no exception and we have a lovely group of regulars that include: Blue Tits, Great Tits, Coal Tits, Sparrows, and my personal favourite is the Nuthatch. I have had plenty of use out of my camera the last couple of weeks taking photos of them as they feed! This is a Coal Tit ( Periparus ater ), the Coal Tit is slightly less bright in colour compared too other members of the Tit family which you will see below. The Coal Tit is often found in gardens as during the autumn and winter they join large flocks of Tits (such as blue and great) and they then go into woodlands and gardens in search of food. The Coal Tit has a much more slender beak than other Tits and they use this effectively in conifer woodlands, this means they are able to feed with limited competition from other Tits. Coal Tits also stock pile food during the winter, which is why they are di
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Autumn is here....

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Finally Autumn is... and so far it has been a hectic one!! I have led three tours in the Cotswolds and two in Cornwall! We have also been looking out plenty of walks and potential tours in places such as Snowdonia and also maybe heading up to the West Highlands of Scotland. I have also now had my graduation ceremony and can now put BSc (Hons) after my name guilt free, it was a good day I got to see all my friends and find out what they are up to as well as wearing a silly hat!!!! I am going off on a tangent though as the reason for this blog was to talk about the wonderful autumnal colour which we are enjoying at the moment, all the woods and paths have a wonderful golden glow! Today we went on a 'photo finding' trip to the New Forest National Park (our closest national park) to try and find some interesting fungi and do some 'leaf peeping'. We did find some wonderful toadstools and fungi but also some rather interesting history! The Rufus Stone to commemorate the
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Ceping and Sliding

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Yesterday I visited the Cotswolds with my father and my sister Rebecca to go and look out a walk that I am going to be leading in September. The walk in question was from Broadway to Chipping Campden which is a lovely walk alongs the Oolitic Limestone escarpment running from Fish Hill which Broadway Tower sits atop of and Dovers Hill above Chipping Campden. Oolitic Limestone is the main stone in the Cotswolds and is the famous Cotswold Stone which lends it colour to towns such as Boradway, Chipping Campden and the world heritage city of Bath, Oolitic is derived from Greek and means 'egg stone' which can be clearly seen under a microscope lense where it looks like compacted fish eggs.  Broadway which is where the walk starts (although we walked from Chopping Campden and then back) is often called 'the jewel of the Cotswolds' and the 'Northern Gateway to the Cotswolds'. Henry James once said this of the town: "Broadway and much of the land about it are i
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Butterflys, Moths and Orchids....

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The job hunt it still ongoing, I am not as bothered as I could be as it is giving me the opportunity to have more of a role in the family walking holiday business. Yes it means plenty of office work but the field trips make it all worth it! Some of these include looking out walks along the Kennet and Avon Canal, the Cotswolds, and soon I will be heading further afield to Snowdonia and the Highlands of Scotland! The Kennet and Avon walk that we looked out was a walk across to the lovely village of Hampstead Marshall where there is a beautifully preserved and maintained Saxon church, which really makes a fantastic final mile stone before reaching the pub! The estate at Hampstead Marshall is surrounded by lovely wild flower meadows and fantastic trees and avenues as well as some rather large, albeit slightly out of place, architecture in the form of ornamental pillars. These pillars come out in rows from the front of the house like the spokes of a wheel; this was where there were onc
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All a buzz in the downs.

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I have finally finished my university course and so now the job search has begun! Hopefully being out of university will give me the opportunity to work more on my photography skills and enjoy myself more in the countryside! Growing up in the Downs has meant that I have always been surrounded by wild flowers and especially Orchids, this year though has brought with it a particularly spectacular haul of flowers including Orchids. This year on the meadow next to the house the Orchids found have included: Butterfly Orchids, Tweyblades, Pyramidal Orchids, Bee Orchids, Common Spotted, Early Purples and Fragrant Orchids. This of course has given plenty of opportunities for photography as can be seen below. This is a Bee Orchid, a Bee Orchid is designed to too look like a female Bee so that a male Bee will come and try and breed with the Bee and will in the process get pollen on it. Sadly though the Bee the Orchid is designed to attract does not occur in this country and so all Be
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