The wood is teeming with people again but the clearing is thankfully tranquil.

I touch a Hops (or is it Hop?) leaf within a tangly clump of Brambles and Traveller’s Joy. The leaf is slightly tacky – is that how this plant fights its way through its competitors?

A Large Skipper lands on a nearby leaf and poses long enough for a good close up. Its glowing amber and deep chestnut wings are looking a little tatty in places.

An strident warning chirrup from a hawthorn bush distracts me.  Deep inside a moulting Robin skulks. Its behaviour is quite out of character and it’ll have to skulk and look tatty until its new feathers are in place.