Ocean Village, Southampton Re-visited

Wednesday 30th July 2014

We last had a wander around Ocean Village earlier this year on March 7th, when it was a bit dull and colourless, well today was much hotter and brighter. 

The marina.

The water may not be crystal clear but there were some quite large fish mooching around in the weed at the edge of the marina.  We looked  them up when we got home and we think they may be mullet.  Whilst looking for fish we came across this,

a compass jellyfish which according to the internet is very common, but I've never seen one before.  It was fascinating to watch it moving about and it's whispy thin tentacles were very long  (just about visible in this photo).  As we walked on further we saw three or four smaller ones.

There is still plenty of work going on as the construction of the tallest residential building in Southampton continues.

This is a view of the same building from the other side of the marina.

I can't help wondering how some of the names of the boats are chosen for instance this one is the Flying Banana!

A passion flower - growing on the wall of one of the houses on the edge of the marina.

We walked on round until the Itchen Bridge came into view, just to the right of this photo there is a great deal of construction work under way on the old Vospers site at Woolston.

Woolston.

Looking further on round there is plenty of evidence of the docks.

It's alright for some!  This sailing cruiser was absolutely massive (46 metres).

And so ends a quick tour around Ocean Village, a lovely place with plenty to look at.

Eyeworth Pond, Fritham

Wednesday 23rd July 2014

As a couple of new geocaches have recently been hidden near Eyeworth Pond we chose to have a three mile circular walk from there.  Along the small lane that leads through Fritham there is a disused telephone box which has recently had a facelift and it is now an information point for walkers and cyclists as well as a mini library (like the one we saw a few weeks ago in Houghton on 23rd June).  

There was a geocache hidden in the box in a very ingenious container.  Have a look inside ....

.......  how posh is that?  In it there are all sorts of leaflets and folders containing local information, a visitors book to sign and it's got it's own facebook page!  (fritham phone box)

Then it was on to Eyeworth Pond where the ducks seemed to be keeping a low profile for once, maybe they were trying to keep cool in the shade (it was yet another scorcher again today and it's getting boring!).

Eyeworth Pond, with large swathes of lillies.

I especially liked the pink ones.

This dead tree looked dead! (I don't know what else to say about it really, except that someone has very neatly chopped the branches off!!)

This is the view from one of the caches, very welcome shade but still too hot though.

We walked just over three sweaty miles, found three geocaches, explored a phone box, saw a nuthatch, a couple of baby thrushes and not a lot of water in the streams again.  

River Test and Broadlands Estate

Monday 21st July 2014

It was another scorcher of a day again and we chose to stay fairly local and have a wander from Lee (just south of Romsey) across the River Test through the Broadlands Estate.  The river was fast flowing, clear and deep but it still looked quite inviting in the heat.

The River Test.

There were masses of wild flowers along the edge of the lane and across the bridleway, most of which I didn't know the names of!  

However, this old favourite I remember from when I was young and we called the flowers 'granny pop out of bed' presumably because it looks like a bonnet and when pressed at the base it pops out.  I of course had to have a go for old times sake, one popped and one flopped!

Large rolls of hay.

There were a few blackberries ripe already, but most of the bushes were only just in flower.

I just managed to take a picture of this Peacock butterfly before it flitted off, I think the sun and the abundance of wild flowers brought the butterflies out in force today.

There were all sorts of crops in the fields, luckily this one had small labels in it to help me identify the veg, this field was crammed with dwarf beans, 

this one had row upon row of maize in perfectly straight lines,

and this one looked like it may have been marrow or pumpkin type things.

We found six geocaches along the walk, one of which was a bit of a puzzle to get in to and took a bit of brain power - which was difficult out in the heat of the sun with no shade but with a bit of perseverance and team work we got there eventually.

This beech tree is on the side of a cutting and many of it's amazing roots are exposed, there's also a rope swing attached to one of the branches, now that I would like to see, it's a long way up ........

This has to be one of the poshest barns ever, I don't recall seeing hanging baskets before on a barn - maybe it's the new thing!

I love these old farm buildings, they are falling apart a bit but it's ideal for swallow/house martin/swifts and white doves.

We walked just over four miles, saw masses of flowers and butterflies and I was very pleased to see a bullfinch fly by as we were trying to find our way in to the tricky sneaky geocache.  We saw trout of all different sizes in the river and dragonflies flying above it. A very hot day with lots of things of interest along the way.

North & South Bentley Inclosures (Stoney Cross)

Sunday 20th July 2014

Phew it was hot and humid this morning, just wandering along was sweaty work, although there was a bit of a breeze now and then, it didn't seem to help much.  On the way to Stoney Cross we caught up with a vintage car, it struggled a bit on the steeper section of the main road so I managed to get a photo (through the windscreen) - I particularly like the picnic basket on the back - it's a shame they don't make cars like they used to!  I am in no way an expert on cars so I don't know what it is, it looked small from behind but when we turned off and could see it from the side it looked to be bigger and grander than we initially thought.

The tyres only looked a bit bigger than those on a mountain bike!

I'm not so sure that the picnic would stay dry in the rain but there's no chance of rain today.

Today's colour walking across the heath on Stoney Cross was most definitely yellow, flowers of various varieties but all yellow.

Evidence that there were once buildings here on the airfield during the Second World War.

Despite the dry weather we've had for some time now, the ground in the foreground was still  quite boggy,

and the ford had dried up completely.

A little further on we came across large piles of composting ferns, and

small bales of what looked like more coarse heather type 'stuff'.

A beautiful sky.

Driving home a shetland pony and three young ones crossed the road in front of us, they were very sweet but don't look as small in the photo as they actually were.

Millyford Bridge

Sunday 13th July 2014

We got out early this morning, hoping to beat the traffic into Lyndhurst and to avoid the people in the Forest, both of which we did. There are lots of sweet chestnut trees alongside the track and at the moment they are covered in catkins,

which according to our tree book produce a sickly sweet smell, well I obviously didn't get close enough as I couldn't smell them.

Here's the whole sweet chestnut tree, looking at it, I couldn't smell the catkins as they were too high up!

In places the track was 'moving' with wood ants tramping around on a mission, especially near the ant hill, there was a mass of ant action here.

The Highland Water - looks like we have all the makings of an ox bow lake here - referring back to Geography lessons at school!

Amongst the fir trees, the sky looks washed out and boring but in fact it was a lovely bright, sunny and hot morning, so I took another photo to prove it -

the evidence - excellent stuff!

In my last post I went on a bit about funky unusual ferns, these are the common ferns seen all over the Forest, I thought I ought to take a photo of these as they too are funky and quite tall now.

We didn't see a great deal of wildlife again today but there were  plenty of birds, ants, dragonflies and damsel flies.

This is a photo of a golden ringed dragonfly, taken a few years ago but it's the same as the ones we saw up and down the river today - they looked just like miniature helicopters in flight.

After just under four miles it was back to the car and home for some well earned lunch.

Fritham and back via Amberwood, Alderhill and Sloden Inclosures

Friday 11th July 2014

Today we had a hot and humid five mile circular walk from Fritham via Amberwood, Alderhill and Sloden Inclosures, onto Fritham Plain and back to the car.  It was a quiet and peaceful walk but lacked any wildlife, we didn't even see a single horse.  However we did see masses of butterflies, a few dragonflies and one or two birds but there was still plenty to take photos of, including this

fragrant blooming honeysuckle.

Latchmore Brook flowing on one side of the bridge, but.......

not on the other!

One thing we did notice today is that many of the oak trees are looking quite sparse, there's  a lot of sky visible through the canopy.

Some are beyond help, but.....

after the wet autumn and winter there are lots of little tiny oak trees growing all over the place.

The Forestry Commission have been busy.

Very funky ferns, not the usual ones we see in the New Forest, (not that the usual ones aren't funky they're just everywhere!) 

Our lunch spot, in the middle of the Forest, on a posh seat dedicated to Eric Ashby MBE, a well known local naturalist and wildlife film maker.

Hot feet ready for a cooling paddle in the Latchmore Brook, but there was one problem,

there was no water to paddle in!

Out on Fritham Heath some of the heather is out already, in another month or so it will be a carpet of pink buzzing with bees.

Spot the difference between Green Pond today and

on 16th August last year.

I'm never quite sure how to end these posts, so for today this is .....

THE END!