Saturday 17 January 2009

Walking in the Sunshine

Today the Sun was shining for the first time in a week. There was no frost, very little cloud and no wind or rain. It was almost like a Spring morning.

I picked Rosie up from work at 11am and we drove over to the Trentham Lake cafe for a light lunch. It was such good weather that we decided to do the lakeside walk and then go on to climb the monument hill. We had not had a serious walk for ages.
The walk started with a chorus of bird song. This little robin was one of the main contributors, with an accompaniment from magpies, crows, dunnocks, long tailed tits and various others.

Rosie asked how long we should walk for and I said untill we see some deer. There were quite a lot of fresh deer slots (tracks) around so I was hopeful of catching a glimps of the local Fallow Deer. We watched the local rowing club boats practicing on the lakeside then strode out up the hill for the view.
At the top of the hill there was a good view of the new "Potters Wheel". This is a large ride installed at Trentham Gardens with the crest of Stoke-City Football Club (The Potters) on the hub. It gives a clear view of the potteries for miles around. Of course, from the top of the monument hill we are looking down onto the wheel. The passenger pods are quite large, but this image does not give a good impression of the size of this wheel.
We found the deer in the oak wood at the bottom of the monument hill. This was a scattered group of about 15 hinds and juvenile stags.
They were browsing amongs the leaf litter for new shoots and anything that they can get at this time of year.
As we left the park there was a group of 10 stags in full antler in the lower field, but I had put my camers away by then and I missed the photo opportunity. Its good to be out walking instead of in working.

3 comments:

Acornmoon said...

Hi, I am visiting on the recommendation of Rosie. Your photographs are very good, I love the garden birds.

The Dutchess said...

Hello
Just visited Rosie..What a lovely garden birds photo's..Greetings from a garden in Holland:)

Pterosaur said...

Thank you for visiting my blog. It is not often that visitors leave comments here, quite refreshing.