A Day For Photography

Friday morning was spent taking photographs. When I cycled down to the station on Wednesday, to head to Shrewsbury for the plant identification course, I was struck by how fantastic Parson’s Pleasure looked in the misty dawn. So, I decided that, as long as the weather was fairly similar I would have a go at photographing it. Friday it was similar but the conditions were not the same. I still managed a couple of good images though:

From Parson’s Pleasure I then cycled through Oxford looking for other shots. I ended up on the bottom of Port Meadow where I took this one:

Later

By this time it was about 7.30, so I cycled home for some coffee while I reviewed my efforts so far.

I headed out again about 9.45, this time to Christ Church College, where the bands of the Air Training Corps were due to play, along with some guests.

The cadets were absolutely fantastic. The Royal Marines were pretty good as well.

All of my images are on my Flickr site. Please let me know if you would like any.

Shotover Atlas Project Survey 20150326

Having been given our squares for this year’s survey a couple of weeks ago I thought I would I would have a go by myself today. We have been given two squares to survey between us, so we will work on square A together and I can spend time in square B by myself, in my own time.

This will give me the chance to practice my species identification by myself, although I will of course be asking Denise for her advice and help in the identification of some specimens, particularly the mosses and grasses.

Today I thought I would concentrate on Trees and Plants.

Trees

The easiest of the trees to identify was Hazel (Corylus avellana). Collins “Complete Guide to British Trees” describes the bark as “smooth and shiny , peeling horizontally into thin paper strips”. However, the accompanying image shows predominantly green bark with fissures running vertically. The several samples I looked at had this green bark on North Easterly faces but the smoother bark on the South Westerly faces. However, this may have been due to those samples being on the Easterly side of the path.

Collins describes the winter twig as “Mainly straight (but sometimes zigzag towards tip, between nodes), greenish brown and sparsely hairy. The specimens I examined were definitely greenish brown, but hard to say if they were hairy or not. The green, ovoid buds were just starting to burst.

Oak

It would be easy to think that identifying Oak should be relatively straight forward. However, it is not enough to say that a tree is an Oak, we need to identify the species. And in winter, without any leaves I don’t think that is very straight forward. The bark should give some clue, so I am pretty certain the trees I looked at are not Downy or Pyrenean. But are they Sessile or Pedunculate? I shall have to wait for some leaves.

Hawthorn

I examined one shrubby looking tree that at first glance seemed to be another Hazel. However, the bark and the twigs looked a bit different, so I had a closer look. I found short little thorns. So, I thought, it must be some sort of thorn. My first guess was Hawthorn.

The Collins guide describes the branches of the Common Hawthorn as having numerous sharp spines. I would not describe the one I was looking as having “numerous” sharp spines. They were there, certainly but there was not very many of them and they were not very long.

Turning the page the Collins guide also lists Midland Hawthorn (Crataegus laevigata) and describes the branches of this species as “… some spines in the twig axils, but these are rarely more than 1cm long”.

I might have to wait for the next visit, in order to study the flowers and leaves in detail, but I think it is more likely this tree was the Midland Hawthorn, rather than the Common variety.

Flowering Plants

Having looked at the trees, I next turned my attention to the plants. These I knew would be more difficult as most were yet to flower.

Plants I was able to positively identify (either on site on once I got back home and reviewed photos) were:

Geranium robertianum

Even I can identify Herb Robert just by looking at its leaves.

 

Anemone nemorosa

I saw some leaves that I originally thought were young Herb Robert.

However, looking around that area I found two plants with the same leaves that were just coming into flower.

Not Herb Robert after all but Wood Anemone.

Galium aparine

With its rough, square shaped stem, 6 – 8 leaves in a whorl and coating of prickles this was relatively easy to identify.

Euphorbia amygdaloides

I must admit to needing help with Wood spurge, as I could not recall having seen it before. I thought it looked a bit like a Rhodedendron myself.

Lonicera periclymenum

There was plenty of honeysuckle twisting through the trees. Its buds bursting well ahead of everything else.

Uncertainties

There were at least two plants that I could not identify. On consulting an expert I was told that these were likely to be Ranunculus repens (Creeping buttercup) and Ranunculus ficaria (Lesser celandine) but I can’t see it myself and can’t match these images with those in Rose, “The Wildflower Key”, so I will need to see more mature leaves or the flower to confirm these.

Unknowns

There were also two leaves that I could not identify at all, but resembled some sort of Dandelion. I will need to look out for the flowers to give me a better idea.

 

Objectives for next visit.

Examine Hazel bark for differences in appearance around the stem and any correlation with compass direction and path edges.

Check Oak leaves for identification of species.

Check Hawthorn leaves and flowers to confirm Midland vs Common

Confirm presence of Ranunculus repens and R. ficaria.

Identify Dandelion looking plants.

Investigate grasses, mosses and lichens.

Lichen Hunting Part 1

Having become interested in lichens when we did our Welsh Winter Walking course at Plas-y-Brenin a couple of years ago I have recently started to learn more about them. To such an extent that recently I purchased some proper identification guides:

• Guide to Common Churchyard lichens, a Field Study guide by Frank Dobson
• Lichens, An Illustrated Guide to British and Irish Species, also by Frank Dobson

The two could not be more dissimilar. The first is a fold out laminated guide with lots of pictures. The second is a 500 page key driven guide.

With these two guides to hand I wanted to get to grips with using both of them, so this morning, a beautiful bright autumnal morning, I headed up the hill to St Andrew’s churchyard in old Headington, to see what I could see. This post is a summary of the notes that I made this morning.

Location

St Andrew’s church is located in old Headington, to the north east of Oxford. The gravestones studied are in the North East corner of the churchyard, grid ref SP 5448 0764. Bing Map.

Since it was a Sunday morning, and there was a service going on in the church I decided to focus my attention on a grave in the far North East corner of graveyard, away from the main entrance.

Early Lessons Learnt

I was expecting this to be a real learning experience, and to take away some tips for future lichen hunts. The first lessons came almost as soon as I had arrived at the first gravestone.

1. Next time make sure that I bring the correct lens for the camera. I had planned to use my macro lens to take some close up shots but was stuck with the 28-80mm zoom because I didn’t look closely when I picked up the camera.
2. Next time take some tape or blu tack that will enable me to secure a ruler to the vertical face of a gravestone to show dimensions of the specimens,

 

Specimen 1

The first lichen I examined was on a West facing side of a grave. It was roughly circular with a total diameter of about 28mm. It had an orange / yellow outer ring with a pale inner ring and an orange center. The outer ring was about 3-7mm wide and the inner orange center had a  diameter of about 11mm.

Looking at the FSC guide the photos suggest that this might be Caloplaca flavescens:

• It is yellow / orange
• The thallus has a lobed margin. I had to examine the specimen using my x40 hand lens to confirm this
• It is growing on a basic substrate. The grave looks like it is made from some form of limestone

The guide describes that the fruits looks like jam tarts with black discs (lecanorine apothecia). However, I could not see any fruiting bodies.

Looking at Dobson’s book seemed to confirm that it is a Caloplaca but initially I did not know if it was C. saxicola or C. flavescens. After reading the descriptions I am pretty certain it was C. flavescens.

Specimen 2

The second sample I examined was visible as large grey patches, with the one I was primarily interested in being about 9cm across.

Examination using the x40 lens showed that the thallus was mainly grey with raised white areas and black spots, looking like they were sunken into the surface.

Looking at the FSC guide initial identification was not obvious. It might have been Aspicilia calcorea, although the specimen did not have the fractured surface of A. calcarea. It might have been Caloplaca teicholyta, but then I saw the image for Verrucaria baldensis and that looked much more likely.

It was white / cream / grey. It was crusty. It was on a basic substrate. The black fruits were pot or volcano like.

Looking at Dobson p460 / 461 it looks like it was V. baldensis, although it might have been V. calciseda.

A puzzle

While looking for a third specimen to identify I saw this.

The light coloured specimen to the top and left I identified as V. baldensis. So what is the darker grey specimen to the bottom, with almost no black pits. And what is the grey specimen on the right hand side with lots more black pits?

The boundary between each grey area shows some pink colouring and in some places there seem to be small mounds of material (10.2 – 10.8cm at the bottom of this image).

The black specimen at the bottom of the image above may be Verrucaria nigrescens. The three different grey areas may be due to different V. spp. Perhaps V. pinguicula.

Specimen 3

For the final specimen I moved to another grave, that of John Musgrove who died in 1855 and his wife, who died in 1864. So the grave is probably around 149 years old.

The lichen was green, powdery and cracked. It lifted easily from the stone.

The FSC guide shows an image of Caloplaca citrina and this identification is supported by Dobson, as far as I can tell.

Tuesday Bonus

I had an early start this morning, up at 5am to get the 6.26 train from Oxford. However, rather than heading into London I changed at Reading and caught the train to Staines. The meeting started at 8.30am and we worked straight through to 1pm. The client had to finish our meeting as he had another meeting to go to.  This meant that I had an early start back to Oxford, getting home around 4pm. It had been a wet and windy start to the day and the blustery weather had continued all day. However, arriving home it looked like the sun was trying to shine through, although it was still quite breezy.

So I decided to head out on the mountain bike to make the most of the weather.

From home I headed up to Headington and crossed under the A40 to Barton. First stop was the little park area where I had seen local kids playing on a small pump track. Luckily for me there was no one there today, so I tore across the grass and pumped over the few bumps. It was a good place to refresh the techniques learnt from the mountain biking course, but there weren’t enough bumps to really make a track, so I pushed on. Back up the roundabout and then down past Barton leisure center to follow the bridleway to Forest Hill. For some reason it didn’t seem as fast as it had done in the past. May be it was because the grass was longer, I don’t know. I do know that I found the bar ends to be too far up, I need to adjust them to be flatter. I was going to do it on the ride but found that my Smart Tool doesn’t have a small enough Allen key. Do I really need to carry another multi tool as well as the smart tool?

From Forest Hill I headed down the road towards the A40 and Wheatley. At the junction of the A40 and the Forest Hill road there is a bit of woodland with some tracks in it. There was no one else there today so I dropped in for a quick play. I think the tracks must have been made by trail bikes rather than mountain bikes. Even so there were some good drops and slopes, there were some that I considered but rejected as being just too steep and too long to tackle by myself.

From there I crossed the A40 and dropped into Wheatley, turning right towards Littleworth but then taking the side road to Shotover. I saw the long hill in plenty of time and dropped to the lowest gear. I managed to crank it out for a few minutes and made good progress up about 80% of the hill. But, by then my legs just ran out of energy and I had to push the bike up the final section of the steep bit. The road evens out a bit near the end and I was able to cycle the rest of the way to the top.

Near the car park on the city side of the park I dropped into the wood and headed down the bridleway.  It was a mixture of bone dry and slightly damp. A fast but by no means scary descent via some small steps. From the bottom of the hill a quick blast through Brasenose Wood took me back to Horspath road. I rode up to the ring road and across to the Slade. I took a side road to cut the corner and came out near the cross roads of Old road,The Slade and Windmill Road.

I had a quick tour of the single tracks in the old quarry before heading home via Headington.

The full route is on Trailzilla, 19km (11.8 miles) in abut 1.5 hours.

A day of firsts

Well it finally happened today. After thinking that I had got it all sussed and that it wasn’t going to happen to me, even though everyone else said that everyone has that first fall, I finally lent the wrong way when unclipping from my SPDs and fell over. Not at all embarrassed by the fact that it happened while I was stopped at a traffic light at the front of of a line of cars and next to D. No, not at all.

On a lighter note, this was the start of the furthest that I have ever cycled, round about 40miles. From Oxford out to Bampton and back. Epic! A glorious sunny day, fantastic scenery, great cake and coffee at Aston Pottery.

One more first today, topping 30mph on the road bike coming down Cumnor Hill. That felt jolly fast.

The route for the ride today can be found here. Here I am trying to look like a proper cyclist.

Stats for the ride:

Average speed: 13.7mph

Max speed: 30.5mph

October in Oxford

In order to get out and do some exercise this weekend, I decided to have a quick blast around Oxford on the mountain bike. This was prompted mainly by articles in the latest edition of Oxford Today, one of which showed the newly revealed view of the Radcliffe Observatory.

From home I headed across Marston Ferry Road and onto the Banbury Road via the cycle path next to the school and on to Lynton Road. This tool me past Lynton Hotel. I don’t think I’ve been there since we used to members of Trumps, years ago.

On the Banbury Road I turned right into Rawlinsson Road and then left on to the Woodstock Road. Down past St Anne’s and there was the Radcliffe Observatory on the right. The front of the Radcliffe Infirmary was covered in scaffolding an plastic but all the old hospital buildings that used to surround it have been demolished. I headed down Little Clarendon Street and then up Walton Street, hoping for a better look. But in the end I had to stick the camera through a hole in a gate next to Freuds.

I wanted to head down to the Railway station via Port Meadow. It took me while to find the right road leading to Port Meadow, so I had a quick detour around Canal Street. From the car park on Port Meadow I headed along the footpath / cycle way down towards the station. I really like this track as there are the railway lines on one side providing the boys’ toys technical interest, while on the other side are the allotments and trees on the edge of the meadow and the canal providing a contrasting natural interest.

As I neared the station there was a very dramatic cloudscape going on:

Cycling past the station I practised my bunny hops over the speed bumps. Pushing down on the bars and then springing up and straightening my arms it was certainly easier to get the front wheel off the ground. Now all  I need to do is to get the back wheel up as well and make sure that as I pull the front wheel up it stays pointing forward. At the moment I seem to always pull the bars to one side or the other.

From the station I headed up Beaumont Street and into Broad Street. Then I dived into the torrent of tourists in Turl street to check out the Missing Bean coffee shop. This had also been in the Oxford Today so I thought I would see what it was like. There was certainly an inviting smell coming from the open door and it was heaving inside. I cycled on by and onto the High. Then back up the path next to St Mary the Virgin church and into Radcliffe Square, frightening a number of tourists as I went.

Then it was back into Broad Street briefly before turning right down Holywell Street and left into Mansfield Road. As I turned into Mansfield Road I could see a crane sticking out, above the university club. From the top of the crane a cage was suspended and it looked like two men were inside it. I looked back at the road briefly and then back at the crane, just in time to see something fall out of the cage towards the ground.

I noticed small groups of people watching something going on and as I neared the club I could see it was bungee jumping. What I had seen fall from the cage was a guy dressed in a tiger suit. The next one up was even more bizarrely attired:

Click on the image or here to watch the video.

From Mansfield Road I headed onto to South Parks Road, then across the parks via Parsons’ Pleasure and home.

9.1 miles in about 45minutes.

My route can be seen here and my photos here.

Elsfield and Woodeaton Walk

After a week of travelling up to London and back on the Train, and not getting much exercise I was pretty keen to get out and do something this weekend. But then somehow I managed to waste most of Saturday doing not very much (apart from cutting up some wood for when we go away at weekends, and deburring the swords from practice last weekend). So, come today, Sunday, I was determined to get out and do something. D didn’t want to come with me as she was in the middle of making a medieval dress, and besides she was in pain from her feet. So I was allowed out on my own. The question was – cycling or walking?

I plumped for walking a quickly mapped out a root from the house, out to Elsfield, across to Woodeaton, then back via Cutteslow Park and the Vicky Arms. The full route is here, and once the camera has dried out the few photos will be here. It was quite sunny this morning, although the weather forecast was promising showers later. So, to be prepared, and to try out a few options I donned my North Face Valkyrie jacket over my base layer, and packed a spare fleece layer (Jack Wolfskin Gecko) and my lightweight waterproof (Rab Momentum)

From the top of Dunstan Road I headed down Stoke Place, crossed the dual carriageway and followed the hedge line past the electricity sub station to Boundary Brook. Crossing the stream I then kept the hedge on my right and headed up the hill. The path levels out and heads towards a small wood. I know the path enters the wood somewhere but I am never certain exactly where. I follow the path to the right for a few meters and suddenly there is the entrance to the wood.

The ground is very wet and muddy. Even with the branches and tree trunks laid into the path it can be really slippery. Fortunately it wasn’t too bad today and I reached the bridge without incident.

Climbing up out of the wood I followed the path across the field to the far side, where I turned left and followed the edge of the field into the end of a small wood. By this point I could feel the sweat building up inside the Valkyrie jacket. As a softshell it is probably fantastic for winter alpine use, and in the UK it definitely keeps the wind off, but I don’t find it very breathable. So, I thought I would take a chance and replace the softshell with the Jack Wolfskin microfleece Gecko. I was worried that the wind would whistle through this top and that I would chill immediately. However, this wasn’t the case. I could definitely feel the wind more than I could in the Valkyrie but I didn’t feel cold.

The path through the wood leads to a road, where I turned left and followed the road into Elsfield.

As I turned the corner past Forest Farm I turned right, off the road and headed down the bridleway towards Woodeaton Wood. I followed the eastern edge of the wood and crossed the field into Barson’s Copse. From there it was up and across a very muddy field to emerge onto the road just to the east of Woodeaton.

Walking through Woodeaton Wood I thought it had started to rain as I could feel the odd drop landing on me. However, it wasn’t persistent and I didn’t feel cold or wet so I carried on with just the Jack Wolfskin fleece on.

I turned left and headed back into the village until I had almost reached the church. There was a very interesting looking tower in the school grounds on my right hand side, just before the lane that I turned down to follow the footpath.

As I followed this lane it started to rain harder and I realised that the fleece was not going to keep me dry much longer. So I whipped it off and donned the Rab Momentum jacket instead. The fleece has performed better than I had expected so I shall try it out in various other conditions in the future and see how it (and the Mountain Equipment fleece I also bought recently) performs.

At the end of the lane, where the track emerges into a field, the footpath takes a sharp left and follows the hedge down to a small stream. It was now raining even more heavily so, when I reached the hedge at the bottom of the hill I dug out my waterproof trousers and put them on, over my boots and gaiters.  The side zips on the Berghaus Deluge trousers make it really easy to get them on over boots.

I headed left then immediately right over the stream and followed the field edge to Sparsey bridge.

From Sparsey Bridge I followed the path to my left and headed over a slight rise to emerge on the edge of Cutteslowe Park. I headed across the football field and through a newley planted wooded area (it made me think of an old set of allotments), to emerge onto the ring road. I crossed straight over the road and then turned left to follow the path through the trees, running parallel with the ring road.

At the Cherwell I climbed up the bank onto the ring road and crossed the bridge, before heading off to the right and following the foot path to the Vicky Arms.

From there is was a short walk through the woods (past an area labelled Weed Area on a tree trunk), to the Marston Ferry Road and then back home via Copse Lane.

The Rab Momentum jacket performed really well. Its very light at only 340g and reasonably close fitting so I tend to wear it over the top of a base layer, although I could probably get a microfleece on under it as well. The hood fits well over the peaked cap I wear and the Napoleon pockets are great for holding compass, gloves etc. (My only complaint about the pockets is the same complaint about all the jackets I have tried and that is why aren’t they big enough for a folded laminated OS map? D has just bought a Mountain Equipment Kongur jacket, which has huge pockets, but I am not tempted to buy a new jacket just to get decent sized pockets.

First mountain bike ride for ages

Denise has joined an all women cycling club that goes out every other week. Today they were scheduled to go out towards Little Milton and Great Milton, and Little Haseley and Great Haseley. Being an all women club men are not normally welcome, so I decided to take myself off for a ride somewhere this morning. Now the Cannondale has not been out for a while, and the huge off road tyres make it hard work on the road. So, I was looking for a short ride, with a bit of off roading – and ideally a hill to go down as well.

After a few minutes studying the 1:25,000 map I came up with a short route that I hope might include some interesting down hill sections. The route can be seen on my Google Maps page, here.

From home I set off up the hill, and for a bit of variety, I decided to go via the hospital. I had forgotten how steep the hill up past the heli pad is, and I think I would have been better off going straight up the hill from outside the house. Any way, I made it to the top of the hill and came out of the hospital into Osler Road. I turned left on to London Road and then right onto Windmill Road.  Although not a road bike, the Cannondale has got a good turn of speed once it gets going. So, I blasted down Windmill Road to the traffic lights and then turned left onto Old Road.

I made it over the bridge that crosses the ring road and just past the turn to “The Ridings” before the road got too steep for me and I had to get off to walk. Next time I will get further,  and eventually I will be able to cycle all the way to the top. As it was I made it to the start of the car park, had a quick check of the map, and then it was back on the bike. I cycled to the end of the car park and followed the obvious, worn track on the right hand side of the clearing. The bridleway, and cycle way, was well and clearly marked, so easy to follow. I headed off in to the trees and immediately started to descend.

The first bit of descent was fairly straight forward. Nice and open, quite smooth, with a few leaves and small branches. The path then headed off to the right and the slope got steeper. I put the back brake on a bit, sat back on the saddle and kept a relaxed grip on the bars as I headed down the slope, while trying to keep an eye out for the blue cycle path signs.

I don’t really know what the correct protocol is when encountering other people, but I could see a chap walking a dog a bit further on and I wanted to give them both time to get out of my way, so I shouted “mind your backs please!”. He looked around, called his dog to heel and gave me a filthy look as I sailed past him – straight towards a sign that indicated that cycles should head right. I slowed even further and made a sharp right turn, onto a narrower and steeper section of the track.

Not only was this section narrower and steeper than anything I had encountered so far, it was also more twisty, more rutted and had steps laid into it – wooden planks held in place at irregular intervals. For some reason, I thought it best to lift the front wheel slightly when coming off the steps and this seemed to work OK, although at one point I surprised myself with the amount of time I remained airborne!

Reaching the bottom eventually I encountered the hardest part of the route – the mud. Although most of the trail through the wood was OK, there were occasional puddles of deep sticky mud that I could not avoid. I managed to force my way through some of them, but a couple of them beat me, forcing the bike to a standstill and trying their best to tip me out of the saddle. Fortunately I managed to escape with only a bit of mud on my shoe – in one puddle some less fortunate person and lost a whole shoe.

All too soon the path ended at the edge of industrial unit on Pony Road and I was making my home along the Slade, Windmill Road and Old Headington. A short detour down Stoke Place and along the ring road and I was back home.

Just over an hour to do about 7.5 miles.

The Gear

When I worked at Pfizer we had a bonus scheme whereby points made prizes. By the time I realised that my  time at Pfizer was drawing to a close I had accumulated a fair number of points, and so I decided to trade them in for a selection of cycling goodies from the local bike shop. So, some of the gear today came from that time, including:

• The bike – a Cannondale M300 CAAD 2 mountain bike
• Cannondale cycling shoes
• Cycling leggings
• Cannondale shorts
• Helmet
• Gloves

The rest of the gear was walking stuff:

• A merino wool base layer
• Haglofs wind shirt
• OMM 25l rucksack to hold map, compass, spare layer, orange drink, phone, repair kit etc

Not Quite Snowdonia

Since we had made the decision not to risk the journey to North Wales for the Big Christmas Walk this weekend we wanted to get out and do a walk in the Oxford area. With the area covered in snow we looked for somewhere that would offer a pub halfway round where we could get lunch and a couple of pints.

Leaving home we headed up the hill and took the short cut across Dunstan Park and onto Dunstan Road. As Dunstan Road turns into St Andrews Road we turned left and headed down Stoke Place and followed the path to the ring road. Crossing the ring road we went to the right of the power sub station and crossed the stile onto the footpath. We followed this path along the side of the sub station, crossing a stile into the next field and followed the hedge line to the far corner. Rather than crossing Boundary Brook, as we had on previous walks, we stayed to the South of the hedge line and headed East toward Barton.

We emerged onto the end of Barton Village Road, which we followed as it turned left and headed up the hill towards the caravan park at Wick Farm. As the road splits and the right fork heads into the caravan park we followed the left fork into the farm year, heading towards an odd structure that looks like a face.

At the gate in front of this structure we turned right and headed down the track between two buildings.

At the end of this track we turned left and followed the bridleway up the hill. The Bridleway continues up the hill to the B4027, passing Wick Copse and Sidlings Copse on the left.

On reaching the road we had planned to follow the Bridleway to Beckley and the Oxford Greenbelt Way to Stanton St John. However, since we knew the Star at Stanton St John was due to shut at half two and we wanted to get there in time for lunch, we headed down the road to Stanton St John and the Star pub for lunch.

Passing the turn to Horton-cum-Studley we passed a group in fancy dress. There was a Father Christmas, several elves and an angel. They were stopping passing cars, singing Christmas carols and raising money for the Air Ambulance. Having made it to the pub, ordered a couple of pints of 6x and some lunch, the carol singers piled in and set up a CD player as backing music for a selection of carols. As I tucked in to a full plate of roast turkey, stuffing, pig in a blanket, boiled potato, roast potato, carrot and swede (and D tucked into a huge Shepherds pie) we were treated to renditions of some traditional favourites (although I must admit to being a bit Bah humbug about Christmas and all its trimmings).

After another pint of 6x we headed out into the snow and across the snow covered fields to Forest Hill. As we climbed out of Breach Hill we saw some odd patterns in the snow. After some discussion we decided that they were made by a bird taking off.

Looking at the above photo it looks like the bird landed at the top, moved down towards the bottom of the photo, jumped and then took off, its wing tips brushing the snow.

Reaching Forest Hill we walked up the back of the White Horse pub on to the B4027. Crossing the road from the White Horse we headed down the side road towards the Village Hall. Just before the Village Hall we turned right down a short track before heading half left and following the Oxford Greenbelt Way.

We followed the Oxford Greenbelt Way until it reached the outskirts of Barton, where we picked up a bridleway that ran down the back of the estate and then across a few streets to the crematorium road. We headed up to the roundabout, under the underpass and along North Way to Barton Lane and back to St Andrews Lane and then to Dunstan Park and back home.

The full route can be seen as the thick black line on this map. All the photos can be seen on my Flickr site.