A weekend walk in the woods

Society president Alan Malpass told members of the public gathering in the woodland car park off Peatree Lane that with luck the morning's stroll should be rewarded with sightings of dragonflies.

And so it was.

Among the many colourful examples he was able to point out was a Brown Hawker which swooped low over the heads of the walk party as they approached the woods' wet heath.

It was easily identifiable, the president told his guests.

"It is the only British dragonfly which has brown wings."

The walk had started off on the woods' disabled trail. A small hole in an oak is home to a colony of between 20 and 30 bats.

Despite the wet May, June and July, the woods' main pond remains low. "It is winter rain which fills ponds. Summer rain tends to evaporate before it sinks into the ground. That's why we had the recent prolonged sequence of heavy showers and sunshine. It is also why dry winters cause droughts - not summers."

Low it might have been, but the pond was a haven for dragonflies. Saturday's party were able to observe many.

Butterflies have such effective scent organs that they can detect odours at a two kilometre range. The power is necessary. The sole food plant of the Brimstone is the leaf of the Alder Buckthorn.

"When your children will only eat one thing you have to make absolutely certain you lay your eggs on the right plant'¦"

As a double-check, the Brimstone will take a leaf between it's legs and check the texture.

A few deft sprays of water on a sprig of gorse revealed the truth of Alan's oft-repeated assertion that the are one million spiders to the acre in Britain - 200 to the square yard.

The atomised spray instantly revealed the mass of webs.

Children in the party marvelled as he told how fugitives would disguise their appearance in olden times by crushing the leaves of Gipsy Wort and

rubbing it on their faces, giving them an instant swarthy appearance.

The tiny yellow flowers of the Tormentil - or Blood Root - denoted a plant once sought after for its anaesthetic qualities. In the days before dentistry it was put in the mouth to relieve toothache.

The two furthest-travelled of the walk party were holidaymakers from Venezuela; the cool, shaded woods a far cry from a home climate which in in the mid-thirties Centigrade for most of the year - except for the hot season when it is in the forties!

Saturday's was the last of the year's general walks. The next phase is the society's popular Fungi Forays. An indication of the effects of global warming, Alan told the party was that when the society started the forays 15 years ago they were held in September and October.

Now the society had to time the walks in search of fungi for October and November.

The society will also be holding a half-term Family Walk on Wednesday, October 24.

The walk is primarily for children.

"Well-behaved adults are allowed to accompany their children'¦."

Announcements about the timing of the walks would be carried in the Observer.