Walking to Health walk

A "team photo" in the Upper Meadow.

Last week we had a great walk with the Walking to Health group. On a lovely sunny morning Tim and I took nearly 40 people on a tour of the Nature Reserve. We told them about the territorial rivalry between the rooks in the wood and the buzzards that nest down the lane.

While we were walking across the Common, someone spotted one buzzard, then a second one. A scouting rook flew across, but the buzzards took no notice. Then a dozen or so rooks took off and started to mob the buzzards.

Although there was no physical contact, at one point a buzzard had four rooks within two feet of it. The buzzard looked extremely worried.

Eventually the buzzards decided that discretion was the better part of valour and flew back to their side of the boundary.

It was amazing that this happened just on cue, and someone remarked that TV cameramen could wait for weeks to film something like that.

Click here for the map and details of our walk, and the things you can look for at this time of year

We'll keep you posted about future walks at Wapley, but you can find out more about Walking to Health by clicking here, and their programme of walks by clicking here.


Tim explains the species in the Western Wood