Catching the eye

I don't walk in the woods on my own so it made a nice change heading there with Rich and Little Dog, as they're really beautiful.  Quite a few things caught our eye as we trod carefully over slippery mud:

This beautiful bark (obviously), but the smell of pine trees in the warm sunshine, a carpet of wildflowers near the entrance, a treecreeper and the sound of a nuthatch which drew us in only to discover it at a nest site in a hole in a tree - I think I can remember the tree, which isn't far from one of the entrances, so I suspect I might head back there.

The beauty of a muddy walk here is that you can nip over the road to wash the clods off your feet in the river!