Brownsea island trip 🐿️🌰

Last weekend I had the amazing opportunity to stay at the beautiful Brownsea Island with the Dorset Women’s Nature Photography group!

We arrived on the island late Friday afternoon and settled into South Shore lodge which was really brilliant and has the most amazing view out onto the sea.

Once we were settled into the lodge we had a nice wander round to a nearby bit of the island where we spent time watching the red squirrels running about and eating chestnuts! We also spotted lots of fungi including the Fly Agaric, Parasol mushrooms and Tawny grisettes!

In the evening we sat out by the bottom of the lodge watching the sunset and listening to Oystercatchers on the beach below! The sunset was just incredible and it felt like we were in a different country!

On the Saturday morning we got up early and headed over to the hides in the dark to get there just in time to watch the sun rise over the lagoon with Spoonbills, Redshank, Teal and other waders on the water below us!

Then a bit later in the morning we walked over to the church to photograph some Red squirrels in the morning light before the public arrived on the island.

We spent the rest of the day wandering round the reserve doing some birding, spotting more squirrels and photographing lots and lots of fungi.

The amount of Fly Agarics around is so amazing and I have been laid flat on the ground, down underneath ferns and climbing over fences just to photograph them as they are my favourite!

The next morning we headed out early over to the woodland area behind the church and spent over two hours sat watching lots of squirrels feeding around us.

They were so unphased about us being there and they were coming up right close to us and running our feet!

We spent the rest of the day wandering round the edges of island and exploring more about it!

I had an incredible weekend with some really great photographers who I learnt so much from! A big thank you to Jenny for organising it and the Dorset Women’s Nature Photography Group as a whole – I can’t wait to go back in March!