A walk in the woods

Today’s guest picture is another from my brother Andrew. He is on an outing with my sister Susan, and they visited Ickworth House near Bury St Edmunds today.

We had some serious rain here over night. Luckily the rain had faded to a drizzle by the time that we got up, and it stopped completely later in the morning. It was gloomy when I looked at the birds at coffee time, but the chaffinches seemed quite cheerful.

Soon there was a good selection of birds at the feeder . . .

. . . but it wasn’t long before greenfinches totally took over, flying in from all sides.

I was pleased to see that both a greenfinch and a blue tit had chosen colour co-ordinated twigs for their perches.

After coffee, we did venture out into the garden to clear up quite a lot of trimmed material and put it into the compost bin. There was a lot of dead heading to do too, as things are going over an accelerated rate.

It was a lot cooler than it has been, and extra clothing was required for comfort.

I did manage to look around while I was out, and I noted that everyone is on-line these days, even the starlings.

The white lily has made itself as inviting as possible.

The bees have slowed up a bit, and it was quite easy to find a dahlia without one today . . .

. . . though we had to be careful while we were dead heading, because there are still plenty about and they are in no hurry to move.

I wasn’t short of things to look at.

We cleared away a lot of fading calendulas from the bed with the nerines in, and the result gave the nerines a better chance to shine.

When we went in for lunch, I had another look at the bird feeder and found that a coal tit was very busy fetching seeds.

The afternoon forecast was for sunshine and showers, but we thought that with a bit of luck we might enjoy the sunshine and avoid the showers if we went for a walk at Canonbie.

It stayed dry as we drove down and parked the car, and then the sun came out as we walked into the Byreburn wood. The trees in this part of the wood have had a fair time to grow, as can be seen from this picture of Mrs Tootlepedal strolling among them.

Some kind soul has cut a convenient gap in a fallen tree which would have otherwise blocked our progress . . .

At this point, the sun disappeared and it started to rain. Luckily, the canopy above us was sufficiently dense to protect us from the raindrops, and by the time that we had come to the clearing at the top of the hill, the rain had stopped again.

Mrs Tootlepedal led the way through the bracken . . .

. . . towards the track past the pheasant pens, where we saw oak galls, pheasants sitting on the fence and a fine view of trees across the valley. (Click on a gallery photograph to get the bigger picture.)

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The sun came out as we got to the road down to the bridge over the Byre Burn, and it lit up a vibrant viburnum. . .

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The sun stayed with us as we walked down the track beside the burn, passing the little waterfall at the Fairy Loup on our way.

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And it shone brightly on the River Esk when we got to the bottom of the track. The overnight rain has put a lot more water into the river than we have seen lately.

In spite of those threatening looking clouds, it stayed dry as we walked back along the road to the car. We thoroughly enjoyed our little walk of two and a quarter miles with its very varied scenery.

Disposing of a cup of tea and a biscuit, and chatting to two visitors who dropped in took up the rest of the afternoon, and before we knew it, it was time for our evening meal.

We are going south tomorrow for a few days on family business, so there will only be brief posts from my phone until we get home again.

The flying bird of the day is one of the morning greenfinches.