If you haven’t been to Coombes Valley before, it’s definitely about time you paid a visit! At this time of year, there is no better place for a peaceful, enchanting walk than this wild and colourful woodland. This will give you a tempting taster of what you could encounter on your journey through the reserve.
You can enjoy the wonderful wildlife Coombes has to offer from just a few metres outside the visitor centre. There have been quite a few different visitors to our bird feeders this week. Just spending 10 minutes on the viewing platform, I managed to see various finches, tits, a wren and a great-spotted woodpecker. A pair of pied wagtails were making the most of the warm sunshine on the roof, grabbing any insects that surfaced from the tiles and tweeting away to one another.
Pied wagtail by Andy Hay - RSPB images
I love autumn; simple things like just walking down the track become enhanced by a carpet of leaves to scuff through. As you walk down the Valley Woodland trail there are various bits of fungi popping up such as this candle snuff fungus. It’s also known as stag horn due to its antler-like shape and can be found growing on dead wood. Bracket fungi like this birch polypore can be seen all over the reserve; forming shelf-like structures on the trunks of dead trees.
Candle snuff fungus
Birch polypore
If you’re really lucky, you may spot one of our more secretive birds on the reserve, the woodcock. Becky and I managed to get our first glimpse of this bird yesterday, we were lucky enough to see two! Woodcocks are crepuscular, meaning that they are active at dawn and dusk unless accidentally disturbed in the daytime. They like moist woodland with dense undergrowth of plants such as brambles and bracken, and will feed on insects in the soft ground. They are amazingly camouflaged to suit their woodland habitat as you can see in the photo below.
Woodcock by Stanley Porter - RSPB images
You never know what you might find on your journey through the reserve. I discovered this amazing antler from a red deer stag just off the path. Deer tracks in the mud were another sign of their presence here but on this occasion I didn’t catch sight of one, maybe next time!
Red deer antler
If you find yourself wandering on the reserve until dusk (quite likely!), your visit to Coombes Valley will be rounded off wonderfully with calls from our resident tawny owls, a few rabbits hopping around the car park and views of stunning skies.