Shillito Wood: Bird Watching and an Old Stone Cross

We popped over to Shillito Wood, where there is a bird feeding station. People
leave bird seed and nuts on the boulders or fill up the bird feeders. The car park is only small but it's free. You get the odd wildcamper here as it is quite private. If it's raining, you can sit in your car and still watch the birds feeding. This time of year the bracken turns to a lovely orange colour.

Today, it wasn't too bad weatherwise, so we managed to take a few photos. The lovely coloured pheasant was the first to turn up.

Then it was my favourite bird's turn to fly down for food, the little nuthatch.

I used to see quite a few yellowhammers when I was a child. I very rarely see them now apart from here.

You can just spot the blue tit amongst the hawthorn tree. After watching the birdies for a while, we had a short walk in the wood. The last time I was in the wood, I spotted a massive rabbit on the footpath, but unfortunately, I wasn't quick enough to take a photo.

After all the rain that we've had, courtesy of Storm Babet, the fungi is coming out nicely now.

Crab apples are sometimes used to make cider or to make crab apple jelly with. We used to try and eat them when we were young. I could only cope with taking one bite as they were far too sour to carry on eating.

This ancient waymarker, stone cross guided very early travellers to their destination. It was probably put here by monks from the local abbey as far back as the 13th century. Source We didn't need it today as it was only a short walk back to the car park. Sadly, the rabbit didn't make another appearance.