Escaping the heat in the woods

Normally, an arrival at Pulborough Brooks is accompanied by suggestions from the staff or volunteers of where best to go to see interesting birds or other wildlife. Not yesterday. With the UK basking in another heatwave, we were strongly advised to avoid the main reserve loop and head into the neighbouring woods instead.

My youngest and I had a quick lunch in the café first. It was hot enough that their display chiller cabinet was struggling and they were keeping the food in the kitchen fridge. And that made our decision for us. Once my youngest was done trying to tempt birds close to our table with some seeds, we headed out onto the woodland walk.

It was very much a late summer walk. There was occasional bird song, but far, far below the levels you'd have heard only a couple of months ago. We're very much in the post-breeding, post-fledging period, and you can hear it as you walk around. Butterflies and the odd damselfly danced past, but not as many as I'm used to seeing. And it soon became apparent why.

The first thing marked on the map as a point of interest was the Black Pool, which sounded suitably intriguing. So, we made our way there and…

Dried up. Yes, the UK is going through a bad drought at the moment — in fact the government was suggesting that we delete data to save water (!) while we were out – but this was a worrying example of how bad things are getting. The pool was known locally long before the RSPB had acquired the site. There was a sign discussing how important it is for local dragonflies and damselflies. Well, not at the moment.

Concerning.

However, a local spider seemed to be having a better time of it:

The little scrap was beginning to complain about the walk. I grew up on a hill in Scotland, so slopes are natural to me. She's spent the majority of her life on the flat Sussex coastal strip, and hasn't spent nearly enough time on the Downs. And so, the fairly gentle slope on the back half of the loop was proving annoying to her. I tried to distract her by encouraging her to observe the environment:

What became clear is that some of the trees and bushes were showing early signs of an autumnal tint:

Just the time of year? Or another consequence of the drought?

Luckily, shortly thereafter, we ran into a dog walker with an incredibly cute dog. He let my youngest pet and give the dog a treat, which absolutely made my daughter's afternoon, and kept her buoyed up enough to see us back to the visitor centre, just before the shop shut. In time, in fact, to grab a couple of ice creams in enjoy them in the shade outside the visitor centre.

I still can't believe this was our first proper walk in the woodland in all the years we've been coming here. It's absolutely one we'll be returning to as the autumn rolls in…