If, like me, you have a passion for our native wildlife, Wookey Hole and the surrounding countryside is delightful. 

As the days get longer, and very slowly get warmer, we can notice a renewed  urgency in the natural world.  Right on queue this year on  14th February (Valentines Day) birds started to  find mates, sing , and hold territory.   Already I have Dunnocks (the misnamed Hedge ‘Sparrow’), and Mistle Thrushes (the Storm Cock) singing, and spotted woodpeckers drumming in the wood across the valley. 

You can find links for many pleasant walks on the Mendip Hills website, including this one that can be started from the village:   

Ebbor Gorge and Model Farm: 4 mile, 2.5 hours walk

Notes: at stage two, instead of ‘almost immediately turn right to walk past the lime kilns, then bear left onto the lane’ keep straight on to go through the impressive ‘split rock’.You can then go through a gate into the field and straight ahead to pick up the walk at stage 3 ‘to go through a metal gate in a stone wall’ left of the farm.  

If you'd like to learn more about the campaign to re-open the old railway line from Clevedon to Shepton Mallet as a safe off-road route to link up the local villages and communities, then please visit: the Strawberry Line campaign website.