Up With The Larks

 

 

Okay, so there weren't actually any larks....but there were plenty of other feathered friends to be seen and/or heard on the Dawn Chorus Walk.  Chiffchaffs, chaffinches, wrens, song thrushes, robins, wood warblers, pheasants, dippers and more.

 

I figure that, at least once in a lifetime, a girl should get up at 3.30am in order to experience the waking woods in all their tumultuous glory.  The organised walk at Hardcastle Crags (National Trust woodland) seemed a good opportunity to do that.

 

It wasn't the birds, however, that were the high point of the walk for me.  Nor even the breakfast waiting for us at the end of it!  It was the magnificent roe deer buck who watched us from slightly higher up the wooded slope....then casually sauntered on by.

 

Breathtaking!