Wall-to-wall warm sunshine – blue skies, clear air, a pleasant breeze – perfect! It’s been a long time coming. Ideal conditions for a walk from Little Stretton, up beside Small Batch to Pole Bank, back down the Ashes Hollow. A red kite circled, then descended into Callow Hollow; later he appeared again over the ridge, and we saw him one last time as we walked down the quiet valley (maybe three different kites? I doubt it). He didn’t stay – left it for us, the sheep and the buzzards. Other than the aforementioned, and lots of small birds, singing loudly, we had the Ashes Hollow to ourselves. For much of the descent, there’s nothing man-made in view (other than the path) – it can sometimes be hard to believe we’re in the English Midlands.

A walk from Aston Munslow into quiet country on the Wenlock Edge. The Munslows are on the Corvedale road, which isn’t particularly quiet, but through Millichope Park and down into Hope Dale, there’s mostly just birdsong, plus a few sheep and a noisy dog at the farm. A rustle in the trees below gave us a glimpse of a deer, and a red kite wheeled for a few moments before disappearing behind the trees – neither were there long enough, or near enough, for a photo. The kites are coming further and further east from their mid-Wales stronghold – there was one over our house yesterday, a real “first”.

The Speller? Clearly labelled as such on the OS 1:50000 maps, and their 1″ predecessors, the name has intrigued me for many years. There’s a Speller Brook, which flows down through Millichope Park, and Speller Coppice is an area of woodland in these parts. Other than that, I’ve no idea what it is, or refers to.

There were still patches of snow here and there, where the deepest drifts would have been. Still quite a bit on Brown Clee too, though the air was so hazy we could barely see it. It’s still cold, too – very few signs of spring in the Shropshire hills