Bears in the Woods

We bears have been visiting Staffordshire Wildlife Trust nature reserves famous for their wild flowers this year, but I didn't know that one of the best is very close to our house, until Hanley Bear told me.  It's called Parrot's Drumble and it is famous for its wild bluebells.  

Hanley reminded us all that 1st May was Staffordshire Day, and said that would be a good day to visit.  He kept pestering Polar and Grizzly, but it was a mostly cloudy day with lots of heavy showers, and they didn't think we would be able to go.

Finally, an hour before our usual tea-time, the clouds started to break.  Polar fetched us down from our window overlooking the street and tucked us into the bear bag, then she and Grizzly set off on a walk right down through the village, then past the shopping centre and the industrial estate.  We couldn't believe we would find a nature reserve down there, but after a scramble through muddy woods, we were there!

'This is the best bluebell wood in the whole of Staffordshire,' Hanley Bear told us, once Polar had let us out of our bag to explore.  'And, because Staffordshire is the best county in England, this is the best bluebell wood in the whole world!'

I decided it was best not to argue with him, even though we had both visited some very special bluebell woods in Belgium two years ago.  Parrot's Drumble was certainly very beautiful and very, very blue - and there were some wonderful climbing trees too.

Because the ground was quite wet after the showers, Polar and Grizzly decided not to do the long walk down to the stream (which is what 'drumble' means), but stayed in the beech woods at the top of the site.  We didn't hear any other people but we did hear lots of birds singing.

'We love it here so much,' Endon said to Polar.  'Can we come again?'

'I'm sure we can, little bears,' she replied.  'We'll see if we can pick a drier, sunnier day before the bluebells finish, then we can explore all of the woods.  We could even get up early one morning and listen for the dawn chorus.'

We didn't know if we wanted to get up that early, but we would have loved to see the bluebells in the sunshine.

Polar and Grizzly let us do some more running and exploring.  Every time we climbed over a little hill, there seemed to be even more bluebells on the other side of it.

We tried very hard not to trample them with our paws as we scurried about.

Hanley Bear was jumping and skipping.  'This is a brilliant way to celebrate Staffordshire Day,' he said.

Finally, the sun peeped out from behind the big, grey shower clouds.   The bluebell woods looked even more beautiful.  'We should have brought a picnic tea!' said Endon, who was starting to feel hungry after all the running and climbing he had done.

Polar explained that humans weren't supposed to go out for picnics at the moment, just for exercise.  'But you can do some more exploring before we go home for tea, if you like,' she said.

So we did.  Then we sat quietly for a little while, sniffing the bluebells and trying to count how many we could see.  Hanley Bear got to five thousand and twenty-two, then lost count.

Polar lifted us back into our bear bag for the walk back up the hill to our house.  The clouds had almost all cleared away and the fields looked very green and fresh. 

Hanley asked Polar to take some more pictures of the view, so we could show all our friends how nice Staffordshire is, but she was cross when she got home, as you can see dark specks in the sky where there are dust spots on the mirror, so she will have to clean it today, so it's ready for our next visit to Parrot's Drumble!