34th: Chobham Common – Surrey

A traditionally early start was needed to try and get the best out of the visit to Chobham Common. Thundery showers were apparently possible (there was even a weather warning in place!) and we wanted to try and get there as early as possible in order to beat the deluge and get the best light. Therefore, we were up at 05:30 and out the door by 06:00. Upon arrival at 07:00, we were immediately rewarded with a stunning view across the reserve as the sun struggled to break through the low-lying cloud. What a sun rise! It was so breath-taking in fact I think it may have to feature in any piece of art I do from this visit.

The reserve itself is formidable. It’s huge (over 2 square miles and the largest in south west England) and is mainly lowland heath. It’s full of variety though. On our 7 mile walk we tramped through pine, silver birch and mixed woodlands as well as the open heath.

It was this open skied landscape that made the biggest impression though, with its feeling of desiccated life, enhanced by dead trees failing in their efforts to reach that open sky. We also saw lots and lots of life, or at least evidence of it as we did see one dead shrew.

Fortunately, everything else we saw was still very much alive; there were a huge number of flies, spiders, grasshoppers and butterflies, including one that used me as a resting place for about 5 minutes, sorry about the stupid face :-).

Birds were everywhere with treecreepers, woodpeckers, redstarts, stone chats and red kites among the highlights.

A huge amount of inspiration here. In fact, I think I may have to move straight to working on a piece. We observed some wonderful red kite behaviour a while back and I’ve been wanting to depict it in an artwork for a while now, and seeing the red kites today has inspired me to do that right now.