Snitterfield Bushes

I've tried making the size of print a little larger as I am aware it is quite small on my blog posts.  I hope it works!

I've tried to change the background colour again to a light blue but all that happens is this time is that it highlights the words in blue so I've given up on that idea! I suspect I may have to change the template to one with background colour.

Last Saturday D and I visited Snitterfield Bushes, a Warwickshire Wildlife Trust Reserve, a few miles North of Stratford upon Avon.  We've visited just once before.  It was a relief to find it was quiet and peaceful - we saw just a few other families during the whole visit all of whom were in the distance.

Snitterfield Bushes, a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI),  is an area of damp woodland covering 50 hectares with grassy rides and glades, ditches, pond and wet flushes.  It once formed part of a much larger area of semi-natural woodland.  It was a forest for many centuries with the wood being used as timber and common pasture areas.  Ridge and Furrow plough markings are visible in some areas.  The site was used as an airfield in World War 2 and some of the paths are made up of the old concrete runways.  The area was clear felled in the 1940's but since then the site has been returned to its current appearance.

The woodland is composed mainly of ash, oak, silver birch and field maple with a shrub layer of wild privet, wayfaring tree, dogwood and Midland hawthorn.  

• 250 species of plant have been recorded
• 60 species of bird recorded
• 28 butterfly species
• 260 species of macro moth
• 89 hoverfly species
• 177 species of beetle including glow worms
• Red and Fallow Deer occur

Common Darter?

White Bryony berry "necklaces"

I do love autumn and there were many signs on this walk from various berries, to seedheads and toadstools.

Common Fleabane

It looks a good year for Hawthorn berries

Seat with a view

Sloes galore, Rose Hips and Acorns

The next few photos from the walk were taken by my son.

Speckled Wood - we saw several on the walk and also a few unidentified "whites!

There were bat boxes everywhere

On the way back we stopped off briefly in the village of Bearley as I wanted to take a photo of the church.

St Mary's has a 12th century nave and the chancel is 13th or 14th century. There was some rebuilding in 1875 and the brick tower was added in 1830.

The church was open but if you read the small print only for private prayer or funerals.  I was almost tempted to go in though as there is a 15th century font.  Perhaps one day in the future.

Timber framed cottage opposite

The remaining photos are by my son.

Hedgehog Crossing! 😀

We drove through Henley in Arden on our way back home - it was teeming with people and there was a huge queue outside Henley Ices so no icecream stop!  D took these colourful pots and baskets photos from the car.

I am still not over happy with the quality of the uploaded images in the blog post although they may be slightly better in the gallery.  However, I am not very technically minded so have no idea how to change it.  When I used to compose a post in html I was given a choice of photo size having uploading each one but that option seems to have disappeared. I might do a test post using old blogger, if still available,  and upload one photo I have used in new blogger posts to compare.

Oops! I have a horrible feeling that somehow the print size has gone smaller again over the course of the post! Apologies if it has! 😠

D and I hope to go back to Snitterfield when the autumn colours appear as long as we can still travel!

I do hope everyone is staying safe and well.

Photos taken by me with the Panasonic Lumix FZ330 bridge camera

Photos taken by my son with the Canon Bridge SX50 bridge camera.