A lovely day greeted the group of us as we met in the Belhus Woods car park for our walk. We met in the car park there for convenience although our walk was to take us across the Romford Road via the crossing to the nearby White Post Wood and then via Warwick Wood on a circular route back to the car park.

White Post Wood, the wood nearest to Romford Road, has a great display of bluebells, and we also came across clumps of greater stitchwort, lesser celandine and wood sage in the woods. We walked north out of White Post wood up to the car park on Warwick Lane, passing a row of Aspen trees on the right.

We then walked parallel to Warwick Lane till we entered Warwick Wood. There we found another carpet of bluebells. All around we heard the sounds of the newly arrived spring migrants, Chiffchaff, Blackcap and Whitethroat all being heard. At this time of year the trees are beginning to leaf up , which makes it more difficult to see birds and so we heard a lot more birds than we saw.

We completed the walk by emerging from the southern end of Warwick wood and returning across the Romford Road to the Belhus Woods visitor centre. At the entrance to Belhus Woods there is a patch of grass with a large clump of cowslips. Usually in the same area I can find snake-head fritillary flowering but I could not find any there this time.

We finished the walk with refreshments from the visitor centre

Details of future meeting dates and contact details are to be found on the Upminster u3a website at Walking with Wildlife group