On a fine winter’s day, the beech woods and the limestone grassland near Edge are lovely. The light flooding through onto the woodland floor, the twittering flocks of little birds in the canopy, the elegant boles of the trees, then out onto the common where the landscape is laid out before you from the micro scale of the ant hills, to the old quarryings, to the Painswick valley and arrow-straight horizon of the Cotswold tops.
Juliet Bailey will be leading a general interest meeting of the Gloucestershire Naturalists’ Society, Sunday 8 December, starting at 10am from the Shortwood car park on Beacon Lane (SO832086, GL6 6PP gets you close). All are welcome.
The first hour will be round Shortwood to the topograph where there are magnificent views down the Severn Vale and across to the Forest of Dean and beyond. Then at 11am we will set out to explore Edge Common and Haresfield Hill. We will finish by 1pm.
