February had some wonderfully warm and sunny days, which after what had been a drab, but relatively mild winter were most welcome.

It was on one of these days I chose to visit Hurcott pools and wood nature reserve.

I rode my bicycle there, which meant when I arrived I was quite warm from my exertions.

Even so, I could feel the warmth of the sun on my face as I locked my bike in one of the somewhat peculiar looking cycle racks.

I walked along to gaze across the pool and thought it was looking breathtakingly beautiful, especially with the water reflecting the deep blue sky above and both the reed beds and woodland fringe in its glassy smooth surface.

As I stood and stared it was hard not to smile, the view was lovely, the sun was warm on my face and a cool breeze lightly ruffled my hair, making everything seem well with the world.

Eventually I tore myself away from this scene and went for a walk through the woods.

The bare trees allowed lots of sunlight to get through to the woodland floor making the woods as bright as I had ever seen them.

I began to wonder at the vast numbers of different coloured shades of lichen species I could see growing on the trunks of the trees.

Through the leaf litter I could see the fresh green of the millions of bluebell leaves.

These had just started to emerge to prepare for the nature reserves bluebell bloom, which occur in April.

My walk took me along the edge of the wet wood, which like the drier mixed woodland is also preparing for its springtime bloom with fresh green shoots starting to appear.

Unlike the drier wood, which transforms into a blaze of bluebells, the wet woods which are in some places just a paths width away, transform into a blaze of sunshine yellow.

However, the colour in this wood at this particular time was not provided by flowers, but by sunlight sparkling on the ripples of the multitude of small streams and the wonderful reflections of the blue sky coming from the vast numbers of small pools which make up the wet wood.

Further along this path I cut up into the hickory woods.

These were dark and almost cave-like compared to the rest of the woodland, but the sunlight streamed through the tree canopy creating sunbeams that lanced through the wood.

Where these hit the ground they created dazzling patches of light on the woodland floor which seemed to move around as if with a life of their own.

On this occasion, I found Hurcott to be an almost magical place and found my visit ended all too soon.