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New routes, lost paths and waymarks

29/10/2021

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Here are three projects I’ve been involved with as a volunteer over the last couple of years, focused on preserving and expanding the use of the UK’s amazing rights of way network.
Smiling person affixing a small sign to a fingerpost with green fields and a glimpse of a viaduct behind
Feeling pretty happy to be affixing the last waymarker along my stretch of the Sussex Diamond Way (see end of post for more)!

Slow Ways

In February 2020, I headed up to London and joined dozens of volunteers helping Dan Raven-Ellison kick off the Slow Ways project. The idea behind this project at the start was to use the current OS rights of way map as well as Google street view/satellite imagery, local knowledge and Open Street Map to find walkable, direct routes between as many UK cities, towns and villages as possible. Eventually, we’d end up with a spiderweb-y network of routes linking these towns or hubs, with most of those hubs offering some combination of public transport links, accommodation, grocery shops and/or eateries.
Map
This shows the actual routes (in green) between the hubs (in purple). Sometimes two routes use the same part of the path network.
The mapping started on that day, just pre-lockdown, and many volunteers continued over the following months, creating potential routes and offering opinions on different hubs and paths. Should this route go over the hill (shorter) or around it (more accessible)? Should we make this place a hub town to break up a load of longer sections, even though there’s no rail link? (I argued for Alfriston being a hub during that first workshop and was told no… but I see that in the end the route wranglers agreed with me!) Should this route take the scenic footpath (longer, quieter) or the roadside pavement (more direct)? What about if the direct route is walking on the shoulder of a busy road? What’s safer in the city during the day or night - a main road, a back street or a park? Is there really a path here, or does it just look like that on the satellite imagery? It was quite interesting to be part of this process, even though we were having to work online and remotely due to Covid, rather than in the smaller regional meetups originally envisaged.
Map
The streamlined version of the map shows the routes as straight lines between hubs. This shows all the routes from/to Gloucester.
Eventually, these routes would be walked, reviewed and improved on. People could use them to plan walking trips by plugging in two locations (e.g. Bristol and Birmingham) and finding a verified route between those places. These routes which would be broken into full- or half-day sections, each section usually ending, as noted, with transport links and/or accommodation.
Map
A sign with a map of the Dollis Valley Greenwalk.
Stream glinting in sunlight between trees
So much nature in the city (well, the suburbs)!
Slow Ways is now in the route checking stage. Each section will eventually be surveyed by a volunteer trained by the Slow Ways team and reviewed by at least three volunteer walkers. The idea here is to give users an idea of what to expect, any problem areas, accessibility (e.g. for people on wheels) and points of interest along the way. This stage can also flag up unwalkable routes (e.g. footpaths that have been diverted, landscape changes) and people can propose alternatives (e.g. easier, more direct, more pleasant). Once three people have reviewed a route, the route is verified and listed with a tick on a blue snail. And so, when you are the third person to review a route, you have bagged a snail. To add a bit of competitive fun, Slow Ways has got us using the hashtag #SnailBagging.
wide dirt path with muddy puddles bordered by trees and
Some sections of path were a bit muddy.
Paved path between walls with trees in autumn colours overhanging
A new-to-me path in Finchley.
A few weeks ago, I went out for my first review walk (and dragged Dan along with me). In the process, I managed to be the 3rd person to walk and review the route, bagging my first snail! The photos in this section have been from that walk. It was a lovely morning out, and as the route was only 5km long, we walked it both ways! It was interesting to walk the route with different things in mind, enjoying the facilities along the way (there was some good play equipment - always an important part of a walk for me, haha!) looking for accessibility issues (e.g. places where there are no lowered kerbs for road crossings, gates that cyclists or prams/buggies might not fit through, muddy or flooded areas) and thinking about whether the route could be more direct or easier. All in all, a good walk - and I felt like I was doing something for the greater good, too!
A fingerpost showing multiple options for walking
Which side of the stream would you like to walk on?

Don't Lose Your Way

While the public rights of way network in the UK is fantastic, it was hard won and is being continuously fought for. Lots of paths that are in use are not actually on the “definitive map” (drawn up by local authorities post-WW2), which means that our right to walk on them in the future might be revoked. That hasn’t necessarily been a huge issue in the past, because people (usually local Ramblers groups) have been able to add those paths to the definitive map as rights of way if they’re shown on old maps or it can be proved that they’ve been in use. However, after January 2026, paths will no longer be able to be added to this map based on historic evidence, meaning that many public rights of way may be lost forever.

This deadline has been looming for some time, and Ramblers groups have been busy trying to find and claim as many paths as they can. But usually these groups comprise a few volunteers for quite a large area, and many paths are likely to slip through the net. So the Ramblers launched the Don’t Lose Your Way project.
Map
Near Bodle Street Green, a footpath is truncated at a civil parish boundary. Because the path leads "nowhere", few people use it (though we have, for the record!).
In the first stage of this project, thousands of volunteers logged on to a website that allowed easy comparison between the current definitive (OS) map and older maps. I was one of those volunteers, and I found it really interesting looking at 1km x 1km grid squares on the map, checking where paths (probably!) used to be and where they are (or aren’t!) now. One key place to check was along parish boundaries, where a path might be cut off arbitrarily because one place listed it on their map in the 1950s, but the neighbouring council did not. Where we found what looked like missing paths, we’d trace them onto the map and submit them to the database. This process turned up almost fifty thousand miles of potential lost ways!

Now, having mapped so many paths, the next step of the project is to start sorting them out. This is also being done online by volunteers. Which paths are higher or lower priority? Which “lost” paths fix obvious dead ends or create good links in the current path network? Which routes assist with access to sites of interest and open access land? Which are “non-starters” because they have been completely built over? Which ones have been accidentally traced on a current right of way or another map feature like a county boundary? This sorting will help the Don’t Lose Your Way team decide which paths to focus on when it comes to doing further research and putting in claims for the paths.
Old map
The same area as above, showing the "lost" section of the footpath, which is marked "FP" on the older OS map.
I’ve been spending a bit of time going through the online map and categorising routes. Some of the categorisations have been pretty easy and clear (routes that I know from personal use, ways that give access to otherwise isolated bits of open access land, paths that are now under reservoirs, or paths that have clearly just been diverted around a field are good examples) while others are more difficult (it’s hard to decide if a particular path should be a “high” or “medium” priority if I don’t know an area well or at all). But generally I’ve found it quite a soothing way to spend a quiet hour of down time - while also making a small contribution to a wonderful cultural asset that has given me so much joy over the years.

Sussex Diamond Way

The Sussex Diamond Way is a 60 mile, waymarked path in East Sussex, running from Heathfield in the east to Midhurst in the west. The route was created by the Sussex Ramblers in 1995 to mark their 60th anniversary (hence 60 miles) and it takes in some of the varied, picturesque local landscapes - kind of like the low weald equivalent to the High Weald Landscape Trail.
Fingerpost with green trees and a small road leading off to the right
A fingerpost with newly added Sussex Diamond Way markers, indicating the junction with this quiet road.
Twenty five years after the route’s creation, it was time to refresh the path with a full survey and new markers to guide walkers on their way. The Sussex Ramblers put out a call in 2020 for volunteers to help waymark sections of the route. I’ve wanted to do some of this kind of volunteering for a while (I’ve also previously been a local footpath secretary for a nearby parish, and done quite a few other bits of Ramblers volunteering), so of course I said yes.
Person standing in a field with trees and cloudy skies behind
Out with my bag of goodies - marker discs and stickers, screws and screwdriver - in search of posts to adorn!
I was slow to start and complete the actual waymarking what with the winter lockdown, cruddy weather and intense busy-ness at work and with life in general. However, starting in spring I managed to go out with Dan on a few different weekends and evenings to walk our section. We also went to do some waymarking in Ashdown Forest, before realising it wasn’t our patch and it had already been well marked out.
Picture
Look, another fingerpost...
Picture
I'm lichen this one!
We walked quite slowly, making sure every written direction was correct - going both ways - and affixing the markers to fingerposts and marker posts (and only those posts - not to gates, stiles and other path furniture, which belong to the landowners rather than the council). It was also surprisingly tiring, especially when affixing markers higher than my shoulders over and over again. (Thanks for your help, Dan!)
Person in a cap screwing a waymarker into a fingerpost
Thanks Dan! The last outing was quite hot, too.
An old building on a hill
One of the interesting buildings along the way.
I’d seen a couple of markers for this path over the years, and noticed it on lists of long distance paths in Sussex, but I’d never purposefully gone out to walk any of it. More fool me - it’s a really beautiful trail. Just in our short stretch, we found broadleaf woodlands full of bird life, farm tracks with friendly sheep, art and sculptures in gardens, meadows churning with butterflies, a viaduct and bridleways along quiet back lanes. And further west, of course, the path goes through Ashdown Forest, which is always high on the list for visitors to the area. If we had been staying in East Sussex for longer, I would definitely have added this to the list of trails to walk in full. Oh well, something to do when we come back to the UK!
A low brick viaduct with several arches over green field under blue sky
The viaduct near High Hurstwood - it was a pretty good spot end to our involvement in the waymarking project, and the weather was great!
UPDATE: February 2022: Good news about Don't Lose Your Way - the deadline is set to be abolished!

If you’d like to get involved, you can check out Slow Ways here and Don’t Lose Your Way here. I also highly encourage UK walkers to join the Ramblers - those paths don’t open, maintain, fight for and walk themselves!

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Parks and Paths of North London

24/11/2019

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We spent quite a bit of time in London this autumn for various (happy and sad) family events. This meant a lot of time doing things indoors, and a lot of time in the car going back and forth. We tried our best to stretch our legs and get some fresh air while we were up there, and I am pleased to report: North London does a good green space.
delicate toadstools
Lovely little toadstools gathered near the base of a tree.
(N.B. Almost all the pictures I've taken have been of fungus with the phone while out and about . . . So, ah, sorry if you aren't into mushrooms?)
Sunny scene of road, picket fence and trees
Mill Hill, earlier in autumn, when the leaves were just starting to turn. (It's almost all mushrooms from here on in.)
We lived in Finchley for the better part of a year when we first moved to the UK. At that point, all I wanted to do was get into the country and traipse through fields and woods, over hills and farms, away from the city. Although we visited lots of city green spaces, they always felt a bit like second best. This extremely wet autumn, though, I’ve come to appreciate the parks and woods and paths of North London a little more.
Mushrooms in brown leaves
The very new ones were poking out of the leaf litter like . . . well, let's call them fingers.
London has been designated a national park city. Despite the enormous population, there’s green dotted all over the map. Some of those spaces are sports grounds and golf clubs that might only be accessible via public footpaths or not at all, but there are also playgrounds, woodlands, rail trails, gardens . . . In North London, as well as your suburban pocket handkerchief scraps of grass, there are big, sprawling open spaces like Hampstead Heath and long corridors like the Dollis Valley Greenwalk.  There are allotments to walk past, reservoirs frequented by migrating birds and in certain places the city simply gives way to farmland. Also, some of those little patches of green are full on woodlands, and some of the cemeteries are overgrown wildernesses.
two mushrooms with red tops and white gills and stems
Great colour contrasts on these ones.
path covered in autumn leaves below tall trees
These are the kinds of paths I mean!
I’m not going to lie, probably the main reason I’ve enjoyed the parks this year is because I haven’t wanted to get my feet wet. A lot of country paths around our area have turned into boot-sucking bogs. In circumstances like these, it’s quite a relief to know that you can visit a park and wander for a couple of hours through the trees on hard-packed trails where your feet stand a chance of staying dry.
pale, translucent mushrooms growing out of a log
I love finding colonies of fungi on the sides of fallen trees - there's something deliciously life/death/growth/decay about it all.
One day we ventured out for a circular walk from Muswell Hill. We hopped onto the Parkland Walk, a rail trail of which the northern branch runs southwest from Ally Pally to Highgate Wood. Alternatively sinking between embankments and crossing high bridges with views out over the city, the path can be like a highway during summer holidays but quietens down as soon as the weather turns a bit colder. Highgate Wood and neighbouring Queens Wood are some of my favourite refuges in North London - beautiful beech woods, broad paths (and little winding trails leading to adventure), play equipment, rope swings and the cute little cafe in Queens Wood where you can eat a hearty lunch looking out into the trees. On this particular walk I got rather distracted by mushrooms! From Highgate Wood, Parkland Walk goes south east to Finsbury Park - but we cut back between the Crouch End playing fields before returning to the top of the hill via as many back streets as we could.
a handful of tiny white and pale brown toadstools
Sometimes they're so small you don't notice them until you're crouching down to take a photo of a bigger mushroom nearby.
But not all our outings have been like that. There are also little spaces that don’t need much energy or planning: a 15 minute break for some fresh air can take us through the little wood at the end of the road and back to the front door. Or you can jump on the short section of rail trail that picks up where the Mill Hill East branch line now stops and spend half an hour so going up and back. Or there’s Little Wood and Big Wood in Hampstead Garden Suburb, which are perfect for a shot of nature if you can’t decide which bit of nearby Hampstead Heath you want to tackle - you could sit in the Little Wood amphitheatre and watch the squirrels or you could combine the two parks and spend an hour enjoying the autumn leaves.
looking up at fungus growing out of a fallen log
I don't know enough about mushroom identification to know what these are - but the underside looks cool.
Anyway, here’s to the green spaces and mushrooms of North(ish) London!

Do you have any favourite city green spaces? Why not, in the parlance of those YouTubers these days, let me know down below.

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From London to Norfolk in seven years

7/10/2018

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Now, that's slow travel! We have finally completed one of our long-term walking projects: from Dan's parents' old house in Finchley to their holiday let in Old Hunstanton.
Person standing beside a sign saying NORFOLK Nelson's Country - and By Road
We did not go by road.
After finishing my River Rother walk, I had a few days at home before we headed up to Norfolk for a week. We planned to walk four or five days to complete our "every now and then" walking project between London and the north Norfollk coast. The weather was hot at first - too hot to walk on a couple of days, so I ended up going to the beach and swimming in the sea for hours instead! And then, of course, the day we finished was grey and rainy.
Waymarker with an eel on it
Eels!
Barred gate with EA in red text
We saw a lamb sneak under this gate.
I'll pop a few more photos down the bottom of this post, but I thought this would be a good moment to look back over the whole walk - which we started back in 2011, when we'd just moved to London from Australia. We didn't get back to it for a few years after that, but we've been fairly consistent in doing a section since 2015.

2011

Possibly early November 2011. Finchley to High Barnet.
Under a brick viaduct
Under the Dollis Brook Viaduct.
Silhouetted tree
Boundary tree - Middlesex and Hertfordshire.
November 2011. High Barnet to Cuffley.
Toadstool
The prettiest toadstool near the M25.
Autumnal path through woods
Pretty autumnal path through the woods.
December 2011. Cuffley to Hertford; Hertford to Green Tye; Green Tye to Bishop's Stortford.
Pollarded trees
Pollarded trees in Daneswood, I believe.
Henry Moore sculpture through trees
Moore of this, please.
Person with thermos in light snow
I was so young!
Sunset with light clouds
Sunset in Hertfordshire.
Field with snow falling
This was still quite a novelty - my first full winter in the UK.

2015

October 2015. Bishop's Stortford to Great Chesterford over two days (wild camping overnight). Read a snippet about this leg under "Other adventures" in this post.
Red berries
Autumn colours
Highway
Now every time we go under this road we say, "We've walked here!"

2016

October 2016. Great Chesterford to Cambridge; Cambridge to Ely. Read more in a previous blog post, Rivers and Roman roads: An autumn walk in Cambridgeshire.
Landscape with trees
Autumn in Cambridgeshire
Deer among wildflowers and weeds
A friend near the river

2017

August 2017. Ely to Littleport.
River reflecting sky and flat landscape
Definitely in the flat lands now

2018

August 2018. Littleport to Downham Market; Downham Market to King's Lynn; King's Lynn to Little Massingham; Little Massingham to Old Hunstanton.
Still water reflects trees, clouds, tractors
Not pictured: just how hot it was!

Yesterday @thebooklender and I walked from Downham Market to King’s Lynn along the river. It was not as hot as the day before, the walking was easier and there was more to see. pic.twitter.com/NpYZ2WKZtB

— Jonathan (@jonathanworking) August 5, 2018

We measured our progress for a while against the many Wiggenhall St [X] church spires and stopped for a snack at a riverside pub. pic.twitter.com/p8rz1Dpd5i

— Jonathan (@jonathanworking) August 5, 2018
Person on a flying fox/zipwire

Along the aptly named Sandy Lane by Roydon Common, along the old rail line. There was a lot more to see today, and there were even some things that count as hills in Norfolk. pic.twitter.com/CpHqGOo05C

— Jonathan (@jonathanworking) August 6, 2018

We passed the hot hour challenging each other to write poems about this field, that view, each section between shade.

Buzzard over wheat,
sugar beet. We crane our necks,
hunting for the sea pic.twitter.com/x9RyKZI02b

— Jonathan (@jonathanworking) August 6, 2018
Person with umbrella in front of fancy building
Home, sweet home. (Just kidding, this is not the folks' holiday house!)

Some of our other long-term walking projects and incomplete paths include the Grand Union Canal, the Thames Path and the Ridgeway (which we also completed this summer - more to come). A friend recently asked us if this was a common thing to do . . . so, is it? Do you have any walking projects on the go?

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2016 revisited: August

14/1/2017

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Wales, Malvern, Birmingham, London, Sussex, Kent . . . August was jam-packed with activities as we made the most of our summer holidays. This is a bit of an epic post - though, to be fair, it's mainly photos.
After walking from channel to channel, our holiday continued with a short stay in Monmouthshire. Our Airbnb wasn't far from Rockfield Studios, actually, and the museum in Monmouth had an interesting exhibition about the studio. We were also delighted to discover Monteas, a looseleaf tea shop with a friendly owner. We bought some delicious tea.
landscape
This was the view just across the lane from our accommodation. Dream house up on the hill opposite...
shop front with colourful produce
Fruit and veg shop in Monmouth.
From Monmouth, we went canoeing down the River Wye, which was great fun. I'd only kayaked before, so it was interesting to get a feel for canoeing - it feels much more sedate and, if you're in a canoe with others, there's more team work and communication.

​After a few days on the river, it was off to Malvern to finally visit the Malvern Hills. The short chain of hills is an eye-catching feature in the landscape, rising abruptly from the low-lying surrounds. We've seen them in passing and have always meant to visit, but it took us several years to get around to it! We just had one morning to climb to the top of one of the hills and enjoy a cup of tea sheltering from the stiff breeze. But what a morning! I loved being able to pick out other places we've been (the line of Hay Bluff was just visible in the hazy distance) and other hills we might want to climb.
Hill and distant views
Looking north along the Malvern Hills. Doesn't that path just make you want to walk (or cycle, or run, if they're your things)?
Sheep on hillside, landscape behind
Lucky sheep, to have this view. Also, the grass is probably quite nice.
line of hills
Looking south towards British Camp. Next time...
crows
Beautiful plumage, innit.
person standing on low bluff
Look! I have finally taken one of these photos! I made Dan strike several ridiculous poses.
person walking with large pack
I was gobsmacked at the size of this backpack - then I realised it was a paraglider. I think I overheard them say they'd glided to Cambridge from here before.
Malvern was an overnight stop on our way to Birmingham, where we stayed with a friend and spent a couple of days exploring the city (and washing our clothes, because after two weeks of walking, canoeing and sightseeing, we were a bit smelly). She took us around the city and we got to spend a few hours in the fabulous Library of Birmingham, another place we've been meaning to check out for years. We browsed books (and borrowed some, thanks to our friend!), admired the old Shakespeare Memorial Room which has been incorporated in the top floor of the contemporary building and wandered around the roof gardens checking out the view.
cladding composed of circles
The iconic exterior of the library. Unmistakable.
round walls with bookshelves
Inside the library, blue neon lights on the escalators.
wood panels and leadlights
Inside the Shakespeare Memorial Room.
two people on roof garden
Up on the roof terrace. The garden is a lovely place to sit (though if I recall correctly, it was quite hot).
On the way back to London, we detoured to visit the Alpkit warehouse and showroom, to look for kit in advance of our Snowy River adventure. That was fun, especially because they let me climb inside the fluffiest sleeping bag I have ever seen. I've always wanted to try one of those out, though I have absolutely no reason to use one in earnest!
old brick building with ghost sign
I love a good ghost sign, though I think this one has been touched up.
canal and city
The canal at Kings Cross with astroturf steps.
yellow lock, red chain
This lock was guarding an inner city garden/allotment of some kind.
stickers
Bikes at the bike cafe, Look Mum No Hands.
In London, we met up with a friend for breakfast and did a bit of city exploring to find some wooden streets. Yep. Did you know that the streets of London (and Melbourne, and many other cities) were once paved with wood? You can read about it in this great article by Ian Visits. I came across this when doing some research for our Snowy River adventure (a proper research rabbit hole) and decided I wanted to see it for myself. Our walk took us down some interesting back streets as well as along main roads, making for a fun afternoon wandering around the city.
Woodblock paving
This is some more recently laid wooden paving near Old Street station.
manhole cover with woodblocks
And here's an old remnant, preserved on a manhole cover.
wood
A closeup of the wood on the manhole cover on Farringdon Road. What a great piece of history!
Home again, home again. But being home didn't stop us getting out and about. We were making the most of our time before heading back to work.
Orange flowers
Pretty flowers in the garden near our house, looked after by the Beautiful Battle volunteers.
riverside - swimmer and a canoe
Wild swimming in the River Rother near Newenden. (Most people venture out in boats hired from the campsite.)
Church
We visited Rye with a friend one beautifully sunny day.
sea
The view from Rye out over the sea. Summer haze blended water and sky at the horizon.
flowers
A few delicate flowers in bloom at a friend's caravan in Hastings.
On the last day of August we walked all the way around Bewl Water. We'd been meaning to do the 20km/12.5mi circuit for a while and the weather forecast was fine, so off we set! Our circuit took us anti-clockwise from the main carpark/cafe area, along dirt and paved paths, down country lanes, around a few small hills, through woods and fields and along the Sussex Border Path for a while. It's a great walk if you're up for doing something of that length.
water, woods, sky
Beautiful still water in the morning. The signs warning of blue-green algae put me off going for a paddle, though!
birds, water
It's always lovely to see the birds and wildlife drawn to the water. These gulls were up and down, up and down, maybe fishing?
lake and landscape
I always try to imagine what places would have looked like before they were flooded by reservoirs - the little valleys and nooks, now gone.
plants
An exciting find: hops in the hedgerow!
boat
Another way to see the sights.
boats
Boats on Bewl Water.
sign in trees
A very helpful sign, not particularly close to the water and totally obscured by trees.
dam wall and clouds
The home stretch: heading back along the reservoir wall under a sky striped with mares' tail clouds.
And on that note, let's call it a day (or a month)!

Previous 2016 revisit posts: January, February, March, April, May, June and July.

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2016 revisited: June

7/1/2017

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The sights and sounds of summer . . .
To start, why not put some sounds in your ears while you read over this post? Below is a compilation of various recordings I made (on my camera, so not brilliant quality) during June. Originally, I intended to do a recording every day for 30 Days Wild, but didn't manage it. Speaking of 30 Days Wild, it was fantastic to get my pack from the Wildlife Trusts, featuring cards with pictures that I drew! It was very exciting to have my art going out to thousands of people. I talked about the process of creating the cards here.
cards
30 Days Wild card designs featuring my sketches.
So, back to our activites in June. We paid a visit to London for a family wedding at the start of the month and enjoyed some green spaces in the city.
Moss
Moss in Mill Hill.
The wedding cakes were a sight to behold. All the fruit and flowers inspired me to try something I'd been meaning to get around to for the last few years: cooking with elderflowers. I foraged a couple of flower heads and made them into pikelets (sweet little pancakes), which worked quite nicely.
cakes with flowers and fruit
Wedding cakes.
Elderflowers
Elderflower.
It's hard to fit in outdoors time around a full time job with a 1-2 hour commute each way, so we decided to start a little tradition of going on a walk on the way home at least once a week. We chose Arlington Reservoir, because it's a one hour circular walk on an easy trail, with a variety of stuff to look at: the water and waterbirds, a bit of woodland, views of the South Downs, animals, buildings, fields. It was satisfying to watch the evolution of the micro-ecosystem that is the reservoir wall over the course of the summer and autumn, until it got too dark to walk any more.
bunny
The cutest bun I ever saw.
daisies
Daisies on the reservoir wall.
view of reservoir wall and hills
Arlington Reservoir with the South Downs in the background.
greenery and flowers
Wildflowers beside the path.
blue water and sky
Arlington Reservoir - the path goes along the long curve of the wall.
There was a gorgeous Chicken of the Woods fungus growing on Battle High Street, of all places. I didn't want to take it, as it looked so lovely and colourful. Somebody else didn't have any such qualms - it had been cut down when we next went past, a couple of days after I took this photo. (I later heard it was a friend of a neighbour, who presented it to a family member for their birthday!)
yellow bracket fungus
Chicken of the Woods (I think) growing in Battle High Street.
We had an amazing microadventure on the South Downs with probably the most beautiful scenery I saw this year. The HRRA walk this month was also on the South Downs, which meant even more fabulous views!
two orange patterned butterflies on pink flowers
Small tortoiseshell butterflies, which have suffered a population decline, especially in the south of the UK.
Green crops and a far horizon
Looking down the undulating flanks of the South Downs.
Green ears of wheat
It's always lovely to see a field of wheat or barley nodding in the wind.
And at the end of the month we went Champing for the first time. Despite quite a grey and drizzly month overall, we did manage to make the most of it.

Previous 2016 year in review posts: January, February, March, April and May.

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Three days on the Grand Union Canal

14/3/2016

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The Grand Union Canal, as the name suggests, is not a single canal, but rather a (grand) union of several canals. There’s the trunk stretching from London to Birmingham and then there are branches, or arms, heading off into surrounding areas. Some of those arms are full of water and navigable the entire way. Others are dry or filled in - completely out of commission. Some are little more than reed-choked drainage ditches, half forgotten except by the creatures that find a safe haven in these slivers of weed and water.
Picture
Fishing on the Slough Arm of the Grand Union Canal.
​A number of years ago, we embarked on one of our very long-term projects: to walk the length of the Grand Union Canal, including all its arms. We started strong, covering most of the sections within London as well as the Wendover and Aylesbury arms. Then we moved down to East Sussex and the canal was too far away for day walks . . . but not too far away for a three day break during the half term holiday! So we booked a couple of Airbnb places and set off. From Slough.

Day 1: Slough to Cowley Lock

Two red kites wheeled close over the road as we drove in - our first taste of the wildlife to come. We parked the car and headed to the canal, surprising a small mammal of some kind (possibly a water rat), which scurried through the reeds and plopped into the water.
Picture
Slough has all the necessities.
Picture
First glimpse of the canal through the rushes.
The Slough Arm was opened in 1882, mainly to carry bricks from the surrounding quarries and brickworks to London. It was closed to commercial traffic in 1960 and there were plans afoot to fill it in. Locals opposed this idea and got on the campaign trail. The canal was re-opened in 1975 and is still in use today. We didn’t see any boats moving about, but there were a few people fishing from the banks and a couple of boats with smoke wafting from the chimneys.
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Ducks of different sizes.
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I actually managed to get a photo of a robin. Miraculous.
We stopped for lunch a mile or so into the walk, just before we felt the first few drops of rain. It was light and scrappy at first, but got heavier as the afternoon went on. We passed a couple of other walkers and joggers, disturbed a deer, tut tutted at the section of canalside that was covered in rubbish, spotted a few birds and the first green hawthorn leaves of spring.  It was drizzling with a bit more gusto by now, but we didn’t want our thermos of tea to go to waste, so we agreed to ​stop under the next bit of shelter for a cuppa. The next bit of shelter was a large bridge carrying the M25 around London. What a romantic place for afternoon tea.​
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We found a few interesting under-bridge artworks. This was not under the M25. The M25 was much more boring.
Refreshed, we strode on, following aqueducts over the Colne Brook and Fray’s River (where we saw a kingfisher). Soon enough, we came to Packet Boat Marina and the junction with the Grand Union Canal proper. Immediately, the canal became more lively - a few boats moving around on the water, cyclists and pedestrian commuters sharing the path with us.
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The Slough Arm with red balloon.
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Junction of the Slough Arm and the Grand Union Canal "main line".
We admired all the boats on permanent residential mooring, but it started raining in earnest so we headed on. The phone was dead, leaving us without instructions of how to get to our Airbnb. Luckily we found a map by the canal, dredged a few bits of info from our memories and eventually found our way ‘home’: a cosy cabin beside the canal, belonging to one of the permanent moorings. Our host invited her two bedraggled guests into the boat kitchen for a cup of tea, where we met a cute dog (Rufus) and cat (Twix). In the end, we couldn’t be bothered going out for dinner, so we went to bed early, drifting off to the sound of rain on the cabin roof and deers and foxes barking in the night.

Day 2: Cowley Lock to Croxley Green

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One of several canalboat cats we saw on the way. This one was totally uninterested in getting pats from us.
A cool, still morning dawned, robins and blackbirds singing in the garden. Twix the cat came to say hello and jumped on the bed for pats. After croissants and jam and freshly squeezed juice for breakfast, we set off at a good pace.
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Heron action.
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What? It was deliberate.
The canal was misty, the smooth water broken only by a little group of colourful mandarin ducks. We watched a heron stalk elegantly along a log, then lose its footing and flail around a bit before looking at us haughtily as if to say, “I meant to do that.”
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Striking old art deco / moderne style building beside the canal.
The stretch through Uxbridge was fairly urban, but passing under the A40 felt like stepping into the countryside. Suddenly, the trees and winter hedges were alive with birds: robins, wrens, chaffinches and tits - long tailed, blue and great. Beyond the trees, we glimpsed a large pink building, which later research showed was a new Hindu temple.
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Bricks and reflections of water make beautiful patterns under the A40.
We took the opportunity to leave the towpath for a while to walk through the woods by the Denham Quarry Lakes. More birds zipped through the trees around us (we spotted both types of woodpecker during the morning), while others swam on the lakes (ducks, swans, geese, cormorants, coots, moorhens). It was really lovely to see so many different birds. I also spotted some wood ear fungus, which was quite exciting. I didn’t eat it.
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Wood ear fungus.
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Another fungus - can any of you ID it?
Two grey wagtails greeted us as we rejoined the canal (a misnomer - they’re mostly recognisable due to their yellow fronts). A little further on, we took a detour up the Troy Arm (or Troy Cut). This is a short, private branch that was used to service Troy Mill. It looks pretty unnavigable now (at least to anything bigger than a kayak), but the surrounding scenery is beautiful: big quarry lakes, blue sky and presumably later in the year lots of greenery. We stopped at a canalside pub for lunch and even got a window seat.
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Cupcakes from the cupcake stall.
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Coal Tax Post, according to this blog.
We might have been full after our meals, but that didn’t stop us a mile or so further on from purchasing cupcakes from two kids who’d set up a canalside cake table. One kid was clearly the business minded partner, with the sales spiel and the cash handling skills. The other one was up a tree.
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Rabbit vs Crocodile. What Happens Next Will Shock You.
It was a gorgeous day, with sunshine so bright that I started to wonder if I was getting sunburnt. We frequently saw bands of goldfinches along the canal, with their distinctive red faces. We also saw a goldcrest and (we think) a yellowhammer. It’s funny that we noticed more birds when we were walking in what is essentially the outskirts of London than we do when we’re at home. I guess it’s partly to do with simply being out and about more when we’re on holiday, but I also wonder if it’s to do with the variety of habitats along the canal - part rural, part wood, part urban, part parkland, part lake. This walk also made me think I should try to get better at identifying ducks. We saw several types, but even after a googling session I can still only identify a few: mallard, tufted, mandarin and pochard.
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More under-bridge art. Frogmore.
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Rope mermaids are in this season.
Past Rickmansworth, we left the towpath again, this time to find our Airbnb. We didn’t have to go far - it was only a minute from the water. This time we were greeted by two lovely hosts, homemade blueberry muffins and an energetic little dog. Dan went to the shops to get rolls, cheese and tomatoes for dinner (so much food that day). We ate, had baths and then fell asleep without even getting properly into bed. Such lightweights!

Day 3: Croxley Green to Berkhamsted

Continuing our theme of delicious food, breakfast included fresh blueberries and homemade bread for toast. Yum! We said goodbye to our hosts (well, the one who was awake!) and headed out. There was a thick layer of spiky frost on everything: leaves, grass, ropes coiled on boats. The world was quite white.
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Frost on the leaves.
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Frost on the ropes.
We followed a flock of morning commuters, all of whom traipsed over the lock gates rather than going the extra hundred yards to the bridge. Wispy bits of steam rose and danced over the water and, further along, thin sheets of ice covered the canal.
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Mist rising off the early morning canal near Watford.
Watford went by without making much of a difference to canal life, although as usual we could tell when we’d left town: passers by started smiling and saying good morning. From Cassiobury Park, the canal and surrounds took on a slightly more manicured appearance. 
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A beautiful, frosty scene over the Grand Union Canal just outside Watford.
We passed a number of increasingly pretty bridges until we reached the white bridge, an ornate piece of work that was part of the canal’s payment to the Earl of Essex in order for him to allow the canal to pass through his estate. It’s easy to forget that while today a canal might be seen as a pretty, picturesque addition to the landscape, back in the day it was like having a highway put through the countryside.
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A pretty, but pretty everyday bridge.
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A pretty big bribe (payment) of a bridge.
We had morning tea in the almost-warm morning sun, sitting on a lock in the middle of a wide green valley between the M25 slip road and the M25. If you count the M25 as the edge of London (which in some ways it is), we were about to head back out of the capital. Near the motorway we spotted a little grebe, ducking and diving all over the canal.
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Fluffy butt.
Despite the warm sun, there was still enough frost on the puddles to try and skate. This mainly involved me clutching Dan’s arm and making him pull me along for a couple of steps as I slipped all over the place. We made good time to Hemel Hempstead. Too good, since we arrived at Woody’s Vegetarian Cafe before they started serving lunch. Oh well, second breakfast was good enough for us!
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Stick figures who have everything under control. Hemel Hempstead.
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The Grand Union Canal Monster.
Past the marina, the canal became quaint again - old pubs, locks, a swing bridge - and what with the very muddy path it was easy to forget we were in the middle of a large town. A few clouds started to appear, and a few more. There was rain forecast for the afternoon, so we didn’t amble. Back into the countryside we went, admiring the clear River Bulbourne running parallel. The river is more a small stream now that the canal takes its water. It was full of watercress, and a little further on a sign informed us that there used to be a thriving watercress industry here. We also saw a tiny wood mouse.
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Grand Junction Canal sign in Berkhamsted.
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Goodbye, Grand Union Canal.
We talked about canals and rivers as we walked, planning future adventures. The path disappeared behind us and soon we were in Berkhamsted. The people of Berkhamsted clearly appreciate their canal and have money to spend. The canalside became very well-kept, with pretty historic signs (still retaining the older name of Grand Junction Canal) and several information points. One such board informed us that Berkhamsted “has the dubious honour of being the home of sheep dip!” And with that, the walk was over. We said goodbye to the canal - until next time! - and hopped on a train. It had taken us about 6 hours to walk from the outskirts of Watford to Berkhamsted that day; it took the train 12 minutes to cover that distance in reverse.

Year of sleeping variously: canalside cabin edition

Our second month of sleeping variously. Last time it was Premier Inn!
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Just looking at this bed makes me want to curl up and let the rain put me to sleep.
  • Bed (4/5) - Loved the super-fluffy duvet.
  • Room (4/5) - Cosy.
  • View (2/5) - From the cabin we could only see the wintery garden, though obviously from the boat there was a nice view of the water.
  • Facilities (4/5) - Nice, big, hot bath: always popular on long walks.
  • Location (4/5) - Can’t complain about a spot right on the canal! It was pretty quiet, too, for what is essentially the outskirts of London.
  • People (4/5) - Clearly in this case we have to count the delightfully friendly cat and dog as people.
  • Food (3/5) - Tea on arrival and freshly squeezed juice for breakfast? Yes please!
  • Value (4/5) - A step up from last month at Premier Inn, ha.
  • Uniqueness (4/5) - Not only was it a cool location with breakfast on a boat, but it was nice to see how our host had modified and decorated the cabin and boat to suit her set-up.​
  • That indefinable something (3/5) - Rain pattering on the roof, birdsong in the morning and a cat to pat.

​Canalside Cabin verdict: 72%

If you'd like to start using Airbnb, use this link to sign up and you'll get £14 off your first booking. We'll get credit, too - win/win!

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Go wildlife spotting

1/3/2015

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February's microadventure challenge was set by Emily. She chose wildlife spotting. Inspired by Emily’s species-tracking updates, Dan and I thought we’d keep a log of what we’d seen in our courtyard and beyond. As the month progressed, I also started thinking about why we hadn’t seen more wildlife.

In our courtyard

We live on the outskirts of a small rural town. We tend not to get woodland and farmland animals in our courtyard, probably because the nearby woods and farms are much nicer than our little concrete square. We’d had a peanut feeder up for a while, which seemed to attract a few birds, but we used this month’s challenge as an excuse to get a seed feeder to pop on our kitchen window. We saw the following birds and mammals in our courtyard during February:
  • Blue tits. Our most common and numerous visitor, these are cute little things.
  • Great tits. Handsome, bolder markings than blue tits and larger, there’s usually only one at a time.
  • Long-tailed tits. We first noticed these adorable birds visiting our garden when we did the RSPB’s Big Garden Birdwatch in January. They come rarely and visit in little flocks.
  • Coal tits. We hadn’t seen many of these before, but they seem to like the seed feeder more than the nuts. They’re quite hard to spot because they flit in and out very quickly. They’re a bit smaller than blue tits and they have greyer markings, so sometimes if it’s overcast or at the end of the day I’m not sure if I’m seeing a blue tit or a coal tit.
  • Robins. I saw two at the same time, which was interesting (they can be pretty territorial). They have trouble holding onto the nut feeder, but they’ll often peck crumbs from beneath it. I noticed them coming to the seed feeder, especially when the ground was frozen and they couldn’t peck away in the planters and pots.
  • A dunnock. These are sweet little birds: delicate, warm grey/brown and quite shy. They’re similar to sparrows and are sometimes called hedge sparrows. There’s something in their colour and manner that reminds me of grey shrike thrushes in Australia (which are much bigger).
  • Blackbirds. We saw male and female blackbirds. I hadn’t seen many in our courtyard before this month, though Dan had. Maybe they came for the seeds and nuts because the ground was frozen.
  • Eurasian magpie. Perching on the wall.
  • Grey squirrels. This was new. In the past we’d had brown rats climbing on the nut feeder and so I just assumed it was still rats to blame for the occasional mass disappearance of nuts. But this month we discovered it was not one, but two bold little squirrels. We don’t see many squirrels around here, so it is kind of nice to have it visit, even though we don’t really want it eating all our bird feed!
  • Mouse or mice. Again, this makes me think maybe the rats have gone, because I’m not sure if mice like hanging out with rats (with the exception of Mrs Frisby)? One of the mice was definitely a wood mouse. It was running along our windowsill under the new seed feeder and I noticed it was a much browner/creamier colour than a house mouse and had really big ears. It was super cute.
One of our neighbouring houses has a long garden that encloses our courtyard on two sides and stretches right down into some trees, towards a big, ungrazed field. The house was recently sold, and our new neighbours only visit occasionally. I wonder if the lack of activity in their garden is encouraging more wildlife up towards our courtyard?
All photos are licensed through Creative Commons. Please click pictures to view original source.
Two blue tits
Two blue tits on a branch (David Reynolds)
Great tit
Great tit (Kev Chapman)
Long-tailed tit and robin
Long-tailed tit and robin (Tony Sutton)
A dunnock
Dunnock (Åsa Berndtsson)
Magpie
Magpie in flight (Irene Mei)
Wood mouse in snow
Wood mouse (Erik Jørgensen)

Beyond our courtyard

We tried to keep an extra keen eye out for animals and birds this month. Around East Sussex and Kent we saw (in addition to the species in our courtyard): wood pigeons, collared doves, jackdaws, crows, rooks, herons, herring gulls, black headed gulls (they look like they’ve face-planted in black ink), a buzzard, a kestrel, geese flying over, wrens (or other Little Brown Jobs), chaffinches, rabbits, foxes and deer (though these were in a deer farm). We also heard woodpeckers and found owl pellets, though we didn’t see the woodpeckers or the owls.

At the end of the month, we were in London and Norfolk. In London we saw (in addition to species mentioned above) a scruffy mouse at a tube station, then in the outer suburbs we saw nuthatches, parakeets and woodpeckers. On the way to Norfolk, we drove past two camels at a funfair, saw many rooks in rookeries, spotted a number of kestrels and a couple of buzzards. 

During our stay, we spied oystercatchers, a little egret, a skylark (or something equally noisy in flight), moorhens, ducks, house sparrows, several hares (on the last day of February, so they weren’t mad March hares yet), a bar-tailed godwit and a smaller wading bird that might have been a redshank.
Kestrel
Hovering kestrel (Mark Kilner)
Rooks
Rooks in flight (timku)
Hares
Hares in a stubble field (Ian)

Wildwood

A couple of friends who have joined the microadventure challenge invited us on the spur of the moment to visit Wildwood in Kent. Since I hadn’t managed to spot a (live) badger, I thought this was likely to be my best chance of seeing one.

We had an interesting but cold afternoon wandering around the park. We saw a sleeping otter, then later on we were lucky enough to watch one up close being fed. They have amazingly powerful little teeth and jaws that can bite clean through a person’s fingers. There were a number of deer species and a couple of elk (they have bizarre looking faces). I enjoyed watching the big, hairy bison - they looked like pleasant creatures (though I wouldn’t like to have one charge at me - they’re massive). Dan was quite taken by the lynx, I was in a flap over the little owl. We saw lots of other animals, including storks, Bennett's wallabies (did you know there are colonies of wallabies living wild in the UK?), Scottish wildcats, harvest mouse, beavers, eagle owls, barn owls, wild boar, wild horses, egrets, ravens (they are so much bigger than crows!) and wolves. We all spent a long time looking at the edible dormice (which are much bigger than I expected and look almost like sugar glider possums), but that’s possibly because they were inside, where it was warmer. Oh, and we saw some snoozing badgers, too: success!

I’m always a bit uncomfortable in places like this. The animals aren’t cooped up in concrete boxes for display like in old-fashioned zoos, but they still don’t have a lot of room to move around in. I know that many of them are rescue animals and are better off here (e.g. Wildwood has just raised enough money to rescue two Bulgarian bears), but I didn’t like seeing the wolves pacing around the fence line of their enclosure, or the raven flying from end to end of its little aviary.

Where is the wildlife?

This was a fun challenge. It reminded us to pay special attention to animals and spend a few extra moments trying to identify them. We were pretty happy with our species total, too - not bad for people who get most of their wildlife knowledge from Springwatch.

But during the course of the month, I started to realise just how few animals we were seeing. For example, it seems normal to us to be excited by a skylark, but this was an extremely common bird within living memory. Likewise, it would have been inconceivable to someone doing this challenge in a rural area in the 1980s to not see a hedgehog - not even a squished one on the road. So many of the animals we spotted have experienced alarming declines in population over the last ten, twenty, fifty years. Even house sparrows and starlings are now red listed in the UK .

There have been some recent success stories: buzzards and red kites have made a comeback, some birds that live well alongside humans (blue tits, robins, blackbirds) are flourishing and although we didn’t see any wild otters they are also scrabbling back from “the brink of extinction”.  But overall, there are huge declines in UK bird populations (especially farmland birds), invertebrate populations worldwide and UK wildlife in general.

Something I read this month, which made me stop and think about this issue, was a fascinating piece of community research by a local primary school and conservation volunteers. They'd published a little pamphlet outlining the history of a village water meadow. As part of the research, they’d collected oral histories from local residents, who were first-hand witnesses to the decline of wildlife in the area. One account was from a person who described how as a child they could go to the meadow and see hundreds and hundreds of frogs: now the school children were lucky if they managed to spot a handful.

This reminded me of a chapter in Collapse, where Jared Diamond talks about the deforestation of Rapa Nui (Easter Island) and its disastrous effect on the human population there. Reading that story, our inclination may be to wonder why an islander chose to cut down the last tree, what went through their mind when they did so, how they could have destroyed that final specimen of what was once a forest. But Diamond reminds us that this deforestation took generations to complete: the person who felled the last tree had never seen a forest.

Such is the case with declining wildlife populations. I think it’s one reason that going out wildlife spotting - with children, with great-grandparents, with migrants, with people from multiple generations, with city people and country people - is so important. It’s one thing to say: “Species X has declined 70% in the last 35 years.” It’s another thing to engage a child in a story: “When I was your age, I would see dozens of Species X on this walk. Why do you think we’ve only seen one pair?”

It's not just children who need this. I’ve been in the UK for over three years and I have never seen a (live) wild badger, wild otter or wild hedgehog. I've seen one slow worm and two snakes. I don’t know what else I’m missing. It’s relatively easy to notice what’s there. It’s much harder to notice the absence of something you’ve never seen.

So, go wildlife spotting! Talk about what you see. Talk about what you don't see. Talk about why that might be. Talk about what you might be able to do to help wildlife survive and, hopefully, prosper.
Skylark silhouette
Skylark (Mark Robinson)
Hedgehog
Hedgehog (Johnson Cameraface)
Starlings
Starling murmuration (Laura Thorne)
Badgers
Badgers (Tim Brookes)
Buzzard
Buzzard (Mark Robinson)
Slow worm
Slow worm (Wilfbuck)
Puffins
Puffins (James West)

If declining wildlife, birdlife and biodiversity is something that concerns you, you might also want to get involved with a local conservation group. In the UK you could try: RSPB, The Wildlife Trusts, Woodland Trust, Bat Conservation Trust, BTO, Butterfly Conservation Trust, CPRE, High Weald Landscape Trust, Hawk and Owl Trust, Bumblebee Conservation Trust or Buglife.

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