25th: Marbury Reedbed – Cheshire

This is a place of real surprises. It’s a small area, included in the Marbury Country Park, a huge sprawling park full of various habitats, activities, an arboretum and café. We walked to a bird hide that looks across at the reedbeds. I have to be honest here, at this stage I was pretty disappointed. We were a long way from the reedbed and, whilst we were having great views of a large swan family, great-crested grebes and a plethora of ducks, there was nothing really to make it stand out from any other reedbed.

That was until we walked around the side and entered the reserve itself.

As soon as we did so, we walked under the stunningly atmospheric embrace of a huge birch tree. It felt like we’d entered some huge marque, but far better! It really was stunning.

Upon walking further into the reserve, we reached a boardwalk that took us right into the reeds, and I mean right into them. We could hear bird life all around us but couldn’t really see any of it. Carrying on further, we finally came out of the reeds into a gorgeous area of mixed woodland.

It was here that we finally managed to get a good sighting of a reed warbler. This is what we found most surprising. We’d come to see reedbeds, but we’d walked through the reeds, like the wardrobe gateway to Narnia into a magical woodland, that really was inspiring.