Walk of discovery for High Woods visitors

They learned that it took 75 acres of oak to build a single man-o-war..

They discovered that the Alder is the only deciduous British tree to bear cones.

And asked while walking through an area frequented by adders what the most dangerous animal is in Bexhill's High Woods they lifted a flap on an information board and read "you are."

There was another important statistic to the Looking For Signs Of Spring walk led High Woods Preservation Society president Alan Malpass..

It attracted 52 visitors, making it one of the most well-attended of his many guided walks.

Recent rains have soaked quickly into the soil. The president showed visitors an oak tree which stands many feet from today's pond edge. In 2003 the tree was a virtual island in the pond.

A winterbourne stream which ran regularly during most winters has been dry fin succeeding winters.

A dry, mild day such as Saturday would have astonished Robert Marsham, who in the 1700s when January meant ice and snow defined the study of the changing seasons.

The High Woods' coppiced oak is a legacy from Elizabethan times when the demands of the ship-building and house-building industries were so depleting the nation's timber reserves that the first tree-planting programme was started.

By the time the oaks reached maturity, ironclads were taking over at sea and houses were no longer timber-framed.

Instead, the oaks were coppiced to feed the tanning and gunpowder-making industries, for Bexhill's was a managed, working, woodland.

For young and old alike, Saturday's walk was a journey of discovery.

But there was one revelation which came too late for most of the party. Just as they were departing, society treasurer Alan Dengate discovered not one but three new woodpecker holes in a tree near the start of the Humphry Smith trail which gives wheelchair users access to part of the woods.

Whatever the season, there is always something new to be found in the High Woods,