This is a good time of year for a Forest Church walk. (Search previous posts for what Forest Church entails). I have begun to plan for this.
The route in mind needed to be checked out. The map was showing a path but from previous experience small grey dashes don’t always check out on the ground! Either because they are not public paths or because they have been closed by land owners or some other reason!
Being a cold day not much above zero I needed to keep moving. My intention was to check out trees and anything else that caught my attention. The ground underfoot on my route is pretty muddy at the best of times due to the underlying chalk. It was good to start out with frozen ground as it made it easier to walk on.
The middle section of the route I have not walked on before and was easy walking due to the more even compacted surface, it being a track leading up to Bushy Farm.
As I moved through the landscape I was alone as a human apart from three vehicles with drivers, which passed me by. My attention was drawn to an arable field which had a number of fieldfare (Turdus pilaris) busying themselves amongst the stubble.
As the lane was unfamiliar to me it seemed to be longer than I wanted. This may have been due to the fact I could see ahead quite considerably. The yearning for more of a narrow enclosed path was felt. That yearning was soon realised as I came to a crossroads.
The path I turned into was one of those wonderful narrow lanes between trees. One field to my left and one to my right both had trees edging them.
I was at one point surrounded by a flock of long tailed tits (Aegithalos caudatus) which hung above me tick-ticking from branch to branch.
Further up the the lane I heard a call note which puzzled me. I flushed out the bird which flew back down the tree line, towards the track. I managed to see it through binoculars and realised the call belonged to a yellowhammer (Emberiza citronella). I don’t get to see those often. The last time I saw one was further west about 2km from this one, about a year ago.
The lane opened out further up the hill. Before that I discovered a gap in the hedge line and took a panoramic shot looking in a north west direction. The lighting wasn’t brilliant but you will get some idea:
Looking across through the opening I could see more clearly the private airfield with a plane or two which I’d seen earlier.
As the field opened out at the end of the tree lined path, I began to see how I could easily get lost at that point. There were a number of similar looking hedgerows and fields rolling off into the distance. Thankfully a jogger with a shy dog ran by me so I got an idea which was the best way, as I watched him disappear into the hedge line further on.
I was taken by a couple of dead trees which writing now I realise I didn’t identify. It was the lichen (Xanthoria sp?) that caught my attention most, which was growing on them. The lichen made them glow with an ethereal light in the surrounding drabness!
I began to take some photos from this point to help me if I came the same way again. At that point I was debating with myself whether to use my selfie-stick as it can stretch out to about 1m providing closer pictures. The reason for this was I’d seen a buzzard (Buteo buteo) take off from the field. I approached along the hedge line and it flew out so I stopped. I watched it land and then moved along slowly, taking in the redwings (Turdus iliacus) feeding in the stubble field. Then another buzzard flew out from the hedge line much closer than the previous one. That’s when I wished I’d had the camera on the stick ready!
Blackwell Farm (might need to scroll around to get the exact point)
The next photos give the general layout of the land. Guildford was obscured by Perry Hill and surrounding features. Apart from air traffic which wasn’t too obtrusive and the distant sound from Hogs Back traffic (A31) it was amazingly quiet.
Once reaching the area as seen above I began to feel more confident where I was in relation to the map. As I traversed up the hill which I had my back to in the last picture above I rejoined a familiar path which crossed over the railway line.
As I crossed over I noticed more lichen on another lot of branches. It was a very damp area and many branches were covered with it. I’m no expert on lichens but I think it was either a Cladonia sp or an Usnea sp.
This walk in total was 4.5km and took me around 1¾ hours at a steady pace with stops every now and then. I used the Wood Street cricket pavilion car park which is very handy.
NB. If anyone can help identifying the lichens I would appreciate that.