Chaddesley Woods

Today we went walking in Chaddesley Woods National Nature Reserve. It is looked after by the Worcestershire Wildlife Trust and is one of the largest woodland areas in Worcestershire. They claim that the woods were mentioned in the Doomsday Book and that some of the area would have been wooded since the ice age 6 -10,000 years ago. It covers about 252 acres and has two distinct parts – the eastern part being the ancient wood and the western part being areas planted during the couple of centuries.
We were very lucky, picking the only good weather of the weekend, and set off. We were soon spotting lots of butterflies, and so the cameras came out. A passing warden told us that we were looking at a silver-washed fritillary - not to be confused with a comma, which we also saw. How good was that!
Further on there was a lake marked on the map, but this we couldn’t find, although there were several large dragonflies around. We thought that it maybe more of a bog area as we crossed a stream that pottered off down the slope and disappeared. Just beyond this we saw a pair of buzzards, winging silently through the trees – a flash of cream and brown – very lovely. As we ended the walk, we heard them calling, and glimpsed one of them high up in the sky slowing circling.




























From here we drove to the Jinny Ring, a craft centre in Hanbury, which is near Bromsgrove. They have a great café there for lunch – lots of choices of food with either veg or salad, and cakes and puds. The crafts are numerous, with glass, woodwork, pottery, art, jewellery, felt and plants being included – not to mention the Chocolate Deli.
For information about Chaddesley Woods click here.