Tuesday 24 September-Tickenham

14 members met on a mild but foggy day for a walk circling Tickenham Moor and the Blind Yeo River, the fields and wooded slopes up to Tickenham Ridge, and prehistoric Cadbury Camp at the top. The moors showed Mute Swans, Mallards, Heron, and Buzzard; one member said there were moves to turn this area into a Lapwing reserve, which would be valuable. We found a good variety of common birds in the Ridge area, most strikingly a Nuthatch posing for great views on top of a tree. Plenty of late Swallows and House Martins chased the abundance of insect life, particularly crane flies, but by far the commonest sounds were the Robins who seemed to have marked out almost every meter of the terrain. Cadbury Camp is literally the high point of the walk and usually gives great views down the Bristol Channel, but today the fog blotted out everything. However the mist highlighted beautiful displays of autumn cobwebs and the group settled happily for coffee into the furthest perimeter ditch between two banks. There were many plants and fungi of interest, including species of the dainty, ephemeral, cowpat-loving Dung Fungi and brightly flowering Field Scabious, Red Bartsia and Common Gromwell; and some members even collected Field Mushrooms for their tea. By the end of our walk – with a Kestrel near the church – we had counted 30 bird species.