Walk 11 - Ladybower

7 miles 12.30pm - 4.00pm. After a month of missed opportunities (lots of heavy rain and a birthday weekend stopped us getting out) we headed out on a warm but cloudy afternoon's walk through the woods above Ladybower reservoir. There were a lot of different trees but they were all the usual ones: Rowan, Oak, Ash, Birch, Hawthorn, Elder, Goat Willow, Holly, Horse Chestnut, Hazel, Sycamore and Beech Trees. We also saw a crab apple which we've not seen before. There was a very distinct lack of bird life. The woods were very quiet and the sounds we heard (and recorded) were all pretty much the same, meaning there wasn't even that much diversity in the few there were! We saw a type of wren on the ground (it was doing its very distinctive alarm call again!!) and a few song thrushes low down in trees but other than that there wasn't much going on. We did record something that our App suggested was a goldcrest but I'm not sure that was true! It was the same with plants, everything was very samey - not much variety at all. We did see and ID some Rose Bay Willow Herb. It was quite sad actually and interesting because I think before we started observing the wildlife on our walks we would never have noticed this - nature was just nature but now we can see where it is abundant and where it is sparse, and here it was definitely sparse.