Take a moment to go a little off the path under the trees to listen to the quiet and the sounds that break it. How does listening with awareness make you feel?

The wind rustling the leaves or stirring the branches.

Year round, you're most likely to hear the song of a Robin https://www.british-birdsongs.uk/robin/ which changes between summer and winter. Over the winter you see more robins because there is an influx of birds from the colder continent.

The song of a Song Thrush https://www.british-birdsongs.uk/song-thrush/ is often an early sign of spring. One often sets up a territory on the wood edge in spring. Woodpeckers (most commonly Great Spotted) may also be heard drumming on dead wood https://wildambience.com/wildlife-sounds/great-spotted-woodpecker/ .

Without much undergrowth under the shade of the beech trees the birds tend to move through high in the canopy, flitting down to investigate the holly, never staying still for long.

In winter tits and finches scatter from the ground into the holly bushes in chattering mixed flocks searching for food. Large flocks of woodpigeons can be scared up from the trees by a passing buzzard

Prepared by Kathy Meakin on behalf of Twinberrow Foundation, November 2023.

Many sources were consulted in preparing 'wander and wonder' information. Peter Thomas, 2000, Trees: their Natural History, Colin Tudge, 2006 The Secret Life of Trees and Peter Wohlleben 2017 The Hidden Life of Trees deserve special mention.