Walk off the Old London Road (B2118)

Being a bit windy, the weather that is  nothing to do with last nights beans, and getting on a bit by the time we got out of bed although 7.10 is not to bad, we decide to stay local, We have often driven past a footpath sign on the Old London Road and said we will have to walk that one day, well today was that day, a 5 minute drive and we are there ,not a good start some Knob has fly tipped a couple of Sofas at the entrance to the footpath. Things improve immediately with a field of yellow flowers the edge of which has some nice Poppies in it and a Skylark is singing high above. We cross the field and through the stile the path opens up into a promising looking glade with plenty of pink flowers, I don't know the name of  and Buttercups

Poppy

Poppies (by Margie)

Glade  (by Margie)

We continue along the path Chiffchaffs are calling and various small birds ,mainly Blue and Great Tits zip out of the undergrowth to quick for pics.

The path carries on like this for a while before opening out a little, still good habitat with plenty of thick hedges and open areas with meadow flowers and some boggy areas. In this area there are more Chiffies, a couple of Bullfinch, singing Blackcap, a couple of Whitethroats, Song Thrush and plenty of the more common stuff 

Bullfinch

Chiffchaff

Common Whitethroat

Stock Dove

Great Tit with something tasty

The path opens up again at this point , we go past a Church some nice old Yews in the churchyard will be checking them out in the winter!! We are back in open fields some Swallows are zipping past us and I actually manage to get a pic of  one in flight , Hurrah!!

Swallow

By now we have reached some fishing lakes, a Moorhen family is cute and yet another Chiffy is posing on a wire

Chiffy mid Chiffchaff

Baby Moorhen 

Moorhen with grub for the younguns

We have now reached the point of the walk I like to call lost time, Margie , as she readily admits has no sense of direction, however this knowledge doesn't stop her insisting she knows where we are and which way we need to go back to the car, comments like "we need to head south" at which points she heads of north are common place on our adventures and have often lead to us wandering around for ages in the hope we will bump into the car, and to be honest I'm not much better and often, despite my better judgement follow her blindly, although in my defence I am often distracted by an interesting bird or insect!!Not to bad in sunny Sussex a different story in the wilds of Scotland!! (I have now got the What/Three/Words app which is a godsend a simple screenshot of the app when we are at the car, then put the three words into the app and then google maps our way home !!) Anyway we decided just to retrace our steps. Margie finds some Rabbits to play with and then a Green Woodpecker which flies up onto a Telegraph pole I take a couple of long shots then start to head back along the path to get closer, 3 steps later it's off ,Green Woodies are buggers I'm sure they have some sort of Evans detector built into em .I've only got to think about looking at one and they are off!!

Green Woodpecker

Rabbit (by Margie) 

View  (by Margie)

The sun is warming up now and there are more insects on the move, by a little bridge  while I'm trying to get a look at a singing Blackcap with the intent of turning it into a Garden Warbler ,I struggle to tell the songs apart ,we are suddenly surrounded by Damselflies, I believe they are mostly Beautiful Demoiselles but I could be wrong!! They are stunning close up ,Margie finds a different type of Blue Damselfly which having trolled the internet I believe is an Azure Damselfly. She also finds a Green bug which having looked at the pics I will probably have nightmares about for a couple of weeks!!

Azure Damselfly (by Margie)

Beautiful Demoiselle (Female)

Beautiful Demoiselle (male)

Stuff of Nightmares  (by Margie)

White Butterfly  (by Margie)

And that's about it a Buzzard escorted us back to the car, the settees were still present, Margie reported them to the Fly-tipping police on our arrival home. A very enjoyable walk, the area looks very interesting and being so close to home will get some regular visits from now on.  

Common Buzzard

All Pics by me unless stated!