1st October 2026.

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First of the month, and a walk in the New Forest: fungi are starting to show not sure how the season will be given the dry conditions through the summer only time will tell.

We had 6 Ravens flying over our heads as we were on our walk today. Ravens are our largest corvid; they’re often seen in pairs, but particularly in the winter, young birds can come together to roost in big groups. Ravens are mostly carrion eaters, but they will eat insects and hunt small live prey.

  • Length: 60–68cm 
  • Wingspan: 120–150cm 
  • Weight: 800–1,500g 

Another interesting spot was a Lesser Stag Beetle.

and some Caddisfly eggs.

Just one Raft Spider seen.

A return visit!

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The Church of St Denys was built in the late 1800s. Its site is close to the ancient Priory of St Denys. Today, all that remains of the Priory is an ivy-covered fragment of a stone arch in a back garden on Priory Road, and another arch has been rebuilt in the gardens of the Tudor House museum in Southampton. St Denys Church was designed by the architect Sir George Gilbert Scott. He was a prolific 19th-century English Gothic Revival architect who designed or altered over 800 buildings. His most famous buildings include St Pancras Station, the Midland Grand Hotel, and the Albert Memorial in London.

The church was open today as part of the Heritage weekend with a guided tour.

I decided to visit today as this is where I was christened, and I had not returned to this church since then.

Medieval tiles from St Denys Priory.

Hurst Castle.

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More from Thursday’s boat trip to Hurst Spit. From1544, Hurst Castle has guarded the entrance to the Solent; on Hurst Spit, its strategic location meant the castle was destined to be a powerful fortress.

From its beginnings as one of King Henry VIII’s chain of artillery fortresses in 1544, the Victorians extended the fort into a large artillery battery along with other forts across the Solent on the Isle of Wight.– It remained in military use until 1956, playing an active role through both World Wars.

Currently, the castle is undergoing extensive repairs to a 38-metre section of the Victorian east wing wall, and gun emplacements that collapsed on 26th February 2021 following severe storm damage and coastal erosion that undercut its foundations

Below is a stock photo of the storm damage before repairs began.

Wheatear.

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A UK robin-sized chat, the wheatear is a summer visitor, arriving here in early March and leaving in September for its African wintering grounds. There were several of these good-looking birds on Hurst Spit today. They are mainly ground-dwelling birds. It hops or runs on the ground looking for food.

Hurst Spit.

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Today we took a small ferry to Hurst Castle. On the spit, there is a lighthouse.

Hurst Point Lighthouse was built by Trinity House in 1867 to guide vessels through the hazardous western approaches to the Solent

The lighthouse was automated in 1923 and is now monitored and controlled from Trinity House’s Planning Centre in Harwich, Essex.

The old keeper’s cottages have fallen into disrepair.