We went to another area new to us today, the Winnall Moors Nature Reserve http://www.hiwwt.org.uk/pages/winnall-moors-r.html We parked at Kingsworthy and walked through to the reserve, on a footpath that must be used a fair bit but the nettles were closing in big time. One determined nettle managed to sting my stomach through my t shirt and oh did it itch!! (but then I am a drama queen).
Nettles encroaching.
A view across the nature reserve, another step further and I would have had a bootful!
At this point there was another information board stating this; Winnall Moors Nature Reserve is at the western gateway to the South Downs National Park and it offers an almost unique glance at the range of habitats that have once been found throughout the Itchen Valley. The reserve has the highest conservation status, protected as both a Site of Special Scientific Interest and a Special Area of Conservation. Winnall Moors also boasts a rich historical and cultural legacy with close ties to medieval Winchester. To this day, the reserve's proximity to the city means that it performs a vital role in storing water, helping to protect the city during floods.
Mole - unfortunately dead!
Sometimes the only way you see some animals is when they are dead - in this case today it was a mole - he was either dead or very good at musical statues as it was still there when we came back again!!!!!! Another creature that we've been talking about lately is stag beetles. I remember seeing these when I was young but I haven't seen one for years, until today that is. Luckily this one was alive although it did play dead or musical statues for a bit until we used a stick to move it off of the path for it's own safety.
Apparently according to he who knows this wasn't a very big beetle but it was definitely a wow moment of the walk today.
Talking of wow moments and ahhhhhhhh moments, this was another one, baby swallows being fed sitting on branches of a dead tree.
I realise I say this a great deal about all sorts of birds, but swallow/house martin/swifts are definite favourites so to see house martins and swallows feeding babies was good. This photo was taken by zooming in beyond the point of no return hence the soft out of focus look. In actual fact these lovelies - about six of them - were very close.
As a final note from today's walk, we successfully found three geocaches, one of which has only recently been published and we were ....... second to find, one day maybe we'll be first to find.
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