Week 30 was the first full week of my 200-mile fundraising challenge for Parkinson’s UK. To stay on track, I needed to walk at least 6.5 miles a day while running a big online work event all week. It was a big ask but I got there!
Alongside the walks there were lots of wild encounters, including:
🌅 Some absolutely beautiful sunrises
🦊 My first fox-spot this year
🌧 A few light soakings
🦅 (Potentially) spotting a new bird of prey
I hope you enjoy all of the delights and challenges of the week – it was definitely a tough one at times but it was worth it! 😊
Monday 2nd August 2021
There’s something about going for a walk before 6am. I can’t quite emphasise how quiet it is compared to 6.30am. I set off at 5.45am and, apart from a couple of very early birds beetling around in their cars, there was absolutely no one around. It was silent. Well, that was until I got to the main road. There wasn’t a car in sight but, as I walked past some residential accommodation, ‘Karma, karma, karma, karma, karma chameleeooon’ blasted out of one of the rooms and nearly blew my socks off. It was 5.50am!!!
And it was a beautiful morning. It almost felt wintery with the mist coming up from the river as I headed to Honington. It was a reminder that we’re well and truly over halfway through the year. The birds seemed to be having a good time though – there were plenty of blackbirds, blue tits, great tits, long-tailed tits and, of course, goldfinches around.
Tuesday 3rd August 2021
What a difference a day makes! It felt positively autumnal this morning at 5.30am (yep, my walks are getting earlier!) but that was because of the fog! It was like an October morning! When I headed out around the meadow, I couldn’t even see Shipston across the river. It’s something I definitely wouldn’t normally see during my usual walking hours at this time of the year. And there were all these amazing spider webs that were shining with dew.
Actually, that’s something that my Rewild Yourself book talks about. How it’s really worth getting up early to explore. The author (Simon Barnes) suggests you should get up before 4am on a May morning to make the most of it. That sounds like a tough ask to me, but maybe I’ll have to give it a try next year.
Wednesday 4th August 2021
I promise that my whole week won’t just be about my early morning walks – I don’t want to get too repetitive! – but today’s morning walk was just too much of a treat to not share.
I did a 4.5 mile walk to Tidmington and back and this has honestly been my favourite walk so far. I left the house at 5.30am feeling totally drained. By the time I got home, I felt much more motivated and full of energy. You can’t ask for more than that!
The reason? Well, the weather undoubtedly helped but the wildlife was the real treat. I saw: some very cute cows in a field, a great spotted woodpecker, loads of rabbits, a fox, a kestrel and a bullfinch. I haven’t seen a fox for ages and it was crossing the road ahead of me and I was just so relieved it got across safely. The bullfinch was nibbling on some yellow flowers and, as it flew off on my approach, I saw it’s bright pink chest and black and white rump. And the kestrel was just chilling on a power line.
I also saw something so unbelievably absurd. There was a right racket ahead of me as I approached a cluster of trees lining the road up from Tidmington. It sounded like loads of blackbirds having a stand-off. As I got closer to the noise, a buzzard suddenly burst out of the undergrowth and flew off across the road, followed by two angry brown birds. They were either young/female blackbirds or thrushes. I’ve seen buzzards get bombed by crows, jackdaws and rooks but I’ve never seen blackbirds/thrushes win a standoff like this!
Thursday 5th August 2021
Just two photos for today. Utterly in contrast. The beautiful sunrise (taken at 5.49am) and an indication of the evening weather (taken at 7.41pm) – to put it into context, my shorts were at least 5 shades lighter than that when I left the house…!
Friday 6th August 2021
The last day of the online summer school at work. I can’t believe how quickly it’s gone – or how tired I am! To welcome in the weekend (before napping on the sofa), I had a good look at the Heliopsis helianthoides (North American ox-eye ‘Spitzentänzerin’) that had flowered over the week. This is another one of my peat-free pollinator-friendly plants from Caves Folly Nurseries.
Saturday 7th August 2021
Today, I did the toughest 7.9 mile walk I think I’ve ever done. My partner and I headed out to the Cotswolds near the small village of Slad. According to our ‘guide’, this was going to be one of the most challenging walks in the whole walk book. The walk was supposed to be 7 miles (we may have got lost on the way!). The book said it would take 5 hours to complete and was a grade 3 for difficulty (it only goes up to 3!)
It’s fair to say that I went into this quite naively: “5 hours for 7 miles?! I can walk at 3.7 miles an hour. We’ll do this in 2.” Oh boy, was I wrong. I can’t quite emphasise how steep some of the stretches were. My Strava said my pace dropped to 40 mins per mile in some places. I’ve never tackled anything like this in the UK. And the downhills were even harder than the uphills – it was quite a challenge not to tumble and, on a couple of occasions, I resorted to going down the slopes pretty much on my bum.
It was a brilliant walk though. We heard buzzards crying out along the whole of the journey and saw a couple of fallow deer and tonnes of young pheasants running around in the fields. The woodland was also incredible – so green and overgrown. We managed to do it in less than 5 hours, but I definitely won’t be so naive next time!
Sunday 8th August 2021
I think I may have seen a hobby for the first time ever today. It’s so hard to know for sure, but I do enjoy putting a face to a name and, though I know quite a few different birds by sight, this one definitely needed some investigating.
As soon as I saw it in the sky, I got the binoculars out but, due to the light, I really couldn’t make out an awful lot. I quickly made a mental note of a few things before it disappeared and wrote them down as soon as I got home. From what I’d seen, I really didn’t think the bird was a kestrel – it didn’t hover and it’s wings were distinctively sharp and pointy. It was also a very nimble flier and made use of the wind to twist, turn and glide. I noted down a few other features, like the habitat and distinctive call. As it happens, I whacked my phone out and played the sound of a hobby right after I’d spotted the bird, just on the off chance. It was pretty much identical. Another key piece of the puzzle.
I checked my list against all of the bird books I have. I ticked where it looked like I was correct and put crosses next to anything not quite right. Hobbies, for example, are actually of a similar size to kestrels, not smaller. And the colouring is different underneath the body. I’m willing to discount this as the light really was bad and I couldn’t make out any colours particularly clearly through the binoculars.
So, though I still can’t be 100% conclusively sure, I’m going to say that I saw a hobby today. And I hope you’ve enjoyed seeing the investigative process. I often only mention what I’ve seen when I write my blog posts. What you don’t witness is all the frustration and guesswork and, for at least half the time, it’s often impossible to say either way.
Emily’s Walk for Grandad – Week 1 update
For anyone following my walking fundraiser throughout August, here’s a little update. I’ve mentioned a number of walks above, but here’s the full tally so far:
1st Aug: 9.65 miles
2nd Aug: 7.03
3rd Aug: 7.07
4th Aug: 7.39
5th Aug: 7.08
6th Aug: 6.89
7th Aug: 7.90
Total: 53.01 miles (8 miles ahead of target!)
Thank you so much for all of the support so far. It really has kept me going! 
*For anyone new to my blog, let me explain a bit more about what these posts are about. Every week I share a summary of my daily ‘acts of wildness’. This wildlife challenge was inspired by ’30 Days Wild’ and ’12 Days Wild’ from The Wildlife Trusts. The ‘356’ isn’t a typo – typically, I only thought about doing this after 2021 had already started so I won’t be able to do a full year this time. Next year will be different though! Thank you and I hope you’ve enjoyed the post!
Ramblings of a (very!) amateur artist 