Off for a picnic

In an effort to cheer up the boy, yesterday we skipped off to Danbury for a picnic. Having done most of the Essex coast by now I wanted to try out somewhere new, and Danbury seemed to be mentioned quite a lot on the Internets. With the promised butterflies and dragonflies I was also hoping to exercise my photography muscles for the day.

It didn't feel much like Essex, what with all the heather and bogs and the fairly considerable hilliness, but it's nice to experience something other than marshland/distinctly average forests less than 40 minutes from home.

Me checking out a Big Tree- concluding it was indeed quite large.

If I knew more about plants I'm sure I would have been much more exciting, but it was a pretty unusual habitat what with reedbeds and bogs tucked in the middle of a forest, then heathland and meadows etc. Even with my limited experience I could tell there was a pretty amazing variety of plantlife across the site. Plenty of floral displays was seen by all...

Honeysuckle smells awesome

There were foxgloves everywhere, which was a stunning suprise. This foxglove was taller than me- photographic evidence may be provided upon request.

As mentioned already, there were loadssss of dragonflies including lots of small blue ones, one reddish medium sized ones and about four big beigy ones (yes I need to learn how to ID them), but they're fast little bastards so you'll just have to use your imagination on that one. There were a few very obliging Speckled Wood butterflies that might make up for it. Also not included were some shiny beetles, some entertaining pill beetles and a lacewing.

Very shiny and new-looking Speckled wood in Danbury.

The woods itself was awesome, with some really ancient trees mixed in with some coppiced areas. The path followed the route of a stream for quite a while too, which was lovely :)

Whooshh...

On the bird front it was pretty quiet, but considering the time of day and year it wasn't too suprising. There was a nice family of blackbirds in the hedges where we had our picnic, and alos managed to pick up the usuall wrens, blue tit, great tit, chiff chaff, chaffinch, willow warbler, blackcap. High light was a greater spotted woodpecker in the trees, and bizarrely a pair of yellowhammers on Danbury Common. I think we'll definitely be coming back at a later date to check out it's full potential, and most importantly to try out The Griffin Inn which was closed for refurb...

A rabbit using it's soundspoons most effectively to detect my clicky camera.