Saturday 19th
April 2008
Balcombe - Staplefield - Ardingly - Balcombe
15 miles
We had to wake up at
4:30 this morning so that we could get the 6:14 train to Balcombe. The reason
for our haste was that we had to do our
BTO
breeding bird survey this morning at Staplefield and preferably finish it before
9:00. So, from Balcombe station we still had a 2.5 mile walk (in the rain) to
get to the start of our first survey transect for 8:00. We just managed it and
were completely finished by 9:05. Mission accomplished!
After we finished we headed south and picked up the
High Weald Landscape Trail. We followed that through
Borde Hill
gardens all the way to Ardingly Reservoir. We had a strange find on a large pile
of manure, a hoof trimming from perhaps a small pony. We took it home and gave
it to our friend Blue to give to his dog Milo. Apparently dogs love them. Yuck!
This turned out to be one of the longest walks (and one of the longest days)
we've done for a while and as it was mostly through mud, so we were pretty tired
at the end of it.
.JPG)
This lake is at the very end of our
survey and always provides lots of species for the list
Not the only deer we saw today, but the
easiest to photograph
Great Crested Grebes courtship display
Hoof trimming - tasty and delicious!