#30dayswild - day 8 & 9 - maps, trains, owls, the bounts app and 4 green spaces in York

I took the opportunity on day 8 of the #30dayswild to walk a slightly longer way to my appointment over 3 miles away so that I took in 4 of the green spaces in York between my house and my appointment. I also decided that I would take this opportunity to be more aware of my surroundings.

Fishponds Wood is a nature reserve between Danebury Drive and Rosedale Avenue quite near my house and is the big green space on the map below. There are various ways that you can into it but it is a lovely green space right in the middle of Acomb, York.

There are always loads of birds singing there which is fab and because I knew it was going to take me just over an hour to walk to my appointment I set off extra early to make sure I had time to enjoy my suroundings on route.

What I also love about this nature reserve is that there are various different ways you can get out of it so you can always walk through it even if you are heading along Danebury Drive as I was - it is definitely nicer than walking along the road!!

Then is was on to Acomb Green which I skirted around the edge capturing this lovely picture of a laburnum and cherry in blossom before heading onto Hob Moor. Having spotted so many concreted driveways walking down to Fishponds I decided that along one stretch of road I was going to do a survey of drive ways.

It was quite depressing to be honest as there were more driveways concreted, bricked, paved with hardly any signs of plants or grass than there were flowers, hedges, greens. As you can see from these 2 pictures nature was trying to make a breakthrough in a fair few cases but I find it sad that people aren't considering the health impacts on paving over their front gardens. It is so much nicer/healthier to come out of your front door and see some plant or grass. I know people have to park cars but we have compromised on our driveway by using the plastic grass filled stuff - golpla - rather than extra paving. It works really well if anyone comes to stay and needs to park a second car and it means that we get grass, clover, dandelions, etc in our front garden.

Having done my little survey along one stretch of road I was over-joyed to view the following:

There have recently been a lot of murmurating (is that even a word?!?!) birds very near where I live but these were much bigger birds so thought I would get a video. It turned out that they were a group of homing pigeons that lived nearby. I didn't even know pigeons could flew like a starling murmuration!!! I know it wasn't as impressive as a large starling murmuration but it was fab to see at 12pm on a Wednesday.

Anyway on to Hob Moor which is right behind Lidl and is a great green space where I have done a forage with York Timebank before. Cows graze there which is always funny to see especially when they are right up at the fence next to Lidl.



Again I was greeted whilst I was walking with a lovely bunch of birds that were flying together very close to the ground, landing and then flying off again. My apologise for my appalling camera skills but I did at least capture the birds!!

There are some lovely trees on Hob Moor but this was my favourite.

What I also like about Hob Moor is the fact that right on the edge nearest the Knavesmire the railway goes goes by and there is a patch of woodland. Normally I walk right past there but today I thought it would be a great place to observe birdsong and I luckily captured 2 trains going past and then the birdsong on the video below:


I was sad not to capture the chiffchaff singing as they are favourite bird and I had heard one before the trains went past but I thought it was a lovely contrast between the trains and the birds.

So on to the Knavesmire and Knavesmire Woods were I enjoyed walking across the grass after so much concrete.

But soon it was back to pavements and my final destination.

You can see my map from Strava showing my route below and if you are someone who uses a fitbit, strava, mapmyrun or anything like that you might want to check out Bounts (and if you use my referral code to join you will get 100 free points which you can use on M&S, Starbucks, Waitrose, etc -> chamberlin-kidd183) 

Day 9
I had a lazy day today because I have a house full of ill people and wasn't feeling great myself either. So for my #30dayswild challenge today I stood outside once it had got dark and listened for a while.

My main reason for doing this was that last night laying in bed with the velux windows open I swore that I heard an owl. Owls are not something I have ever heard on the edge of York before but maybe this whole "being more observant for the #30dayswild challenge" is actually paying off because I did indeed hear an owl as I stood outside in the dark!!!! Amazing end to the day.