A Different Path

The wood ants were biting my ankles. I had been too mesmerised by the teeming, writhing, breathing ants’ nests in front of me to realise straight away. But like terriers guarding their territory, they were showing me what they thought of my presence.

I took the hint and carried on walking, hastily.

But beneath my feet was a stream of ants following the very same path as mine – in both directions. And no wonder. Along this stretch of path I had chosen, I counted eight domed, knee-high nests in less than fifteen metres. It was like an ant motorway in a busy conurbation.

I felt like an intruder. Or like a country girl in the big city.

It was a rain and sun-dappled day and I was walking in the northern side of the Wyre Forest - a part I had only visited once before, many years ago. Everything about my walk felt new and distinct. I didn’t know where paths led. I didn’t know where the clearings were to feel the sun and to look for butterflies. I didn’t know where the big dense yews were to shelter from any rain.

The excitement. The uncertainty.

Until discovering Ant Alley, it had been an otherwise quiet start to the walk. There was the occasional burst of birdsong, the beat of fleeting rain drops through beech leaves, the snuffled snores from my 11-month-old, in her usual sleeping spot on my chest. And I was enjoying the sense of just wandering. Exploring.

Emerging onto a forestry track, I watched bumblebees bowl along its verges, wide and studded with the yellow gems of tormentil and cinquefoil. Fledgelings bumbled through bracken which was noticeably tall and lush now. They were brown-grey birds that I struggled to catch glimpses of with my binoculars. Above them, parties of coal tits and great tits, freshly emerged from the nest, made plenty of noise.

At the grassy junction of three paths, a blue tit came down to the top of the bracken with a bright green caterpillar in its mouth. It was hesitant, facing this way, then that. I was too close for their comfort. I moved along the path, standing in the shadow of big old oak.

The blue tit flew to the top of a plastic tree tube, perched for a split second before scurrying head first down it. At the bottom of the tube, the shadow of animated head bobbing was unmistakable. A couple of seconds and the blue tit was swiftly up the tube and off to find the chicks their next meal.

I felt the heavy weight of my sleeping baby, watched her face. She was fast asleep, lips-parted. So, I stood and watched for a little while longer. Blue tits backwards and forwards with insects in their beaks, scurrying up and down that tree tube. It was impressive to watch. It put my day’s efforts into perspective.

But then I checked my watch. I didn’t want my girl to nap for too long, we needed to get back to pick her brother up from nursery, and there was the nagging sense of not knowing how long it would take me to get back to the car.

I wander back in the general direction of the road but soon realise I’m on the wrong path. Rather than double back, I gamble on a branching path appearing to take me back on course. But after a while of walking in the wrong direction, I decide to make my own way. I turn left along the faintest of old tracks. I climb over tree stumps, squeeze between oak saplings and duck – while trying not to tip my baby – under branches heavy with beechnuts.

I smile to myself as I imagine emerging onto a path - leaves in hair - and scaring a dog walker. Not that I have seen anyone on my walk. I’ve had the place to myself.

And then, a shuffle of leaves. Ahead, two heads poised, stare in my direction.

It’s a muntjac and her fawn, tiny by her side.

They look at me for a full two seconds and then they flee. Their white tails bob between hazel stems before the forest swallows them up and all is still again.

I push on through undergrowth, enjoying not being on a path. Embracing the sense of secrecy that this dense part of the woodland offers. I stop to marvel at the old smooth-grey beech trees again; there are so many this side of the forest. I listen to the high pitch of a goldcrest, somewhere in a tangle of branches above my head. And there is the overriding earth-sweet scent of warm, damp ground.

And then I spot a subtle shifting of bark in the gloom of the forest. A treecreeper, inching up an oak tree. Its white underside is the only thing giving it away.

While I watch the treecreeper through my binoculars in its own little part of the forest, I notice the hum of passing traffic nearby.

The road isn’t far away after all.