An Autumn Walk

"Let's all go out for a walk," suggested Scary on the teddy bears' recent holiday. Of course, everyone agreed. The teddy bears love to go out for walks, especially on what was a beautiful sunny Autumn day, even if it was a little chilly. "If we wrap up in our scarves," Scary continued, "we'll be toasty warm."

The bears all ran off to find their scarves and quickly wrapped them around their necks, then lined up outside their cottage for Scary to lead them on a walk. Scary took them to the edge of a forest and they could see a little fishing village in the distance.

"We're going to walk along this bund to the village and back," he told the other bears. Some of them looked a little wary - it did seem a long way.

"How long will that take?" asked Henry. He only had little legs!

"And what's a bund?" asked Custard.

"Well, let me answer Custard first," replied Scary. "A bund is a raised embankment along a river or the sea, just like this one we are on, with a path along the top, where we are higher than the surrounding land, and it gives us a much better view of things."

"And, Henry," Scary continued, "let's make our walk a little more exciting then and perhaps we could all look out for something really interesting as we walk. That way it won't seem to take very long at all!"

Henry thought about this and decided that it might actually make the distance pass faster. So he and the other bears kept their eyes peeled for anything the others might find interesting.

Very quickly Richard pointed out two large white birds swimming in the water. "Look!" he called, "those are really graceful birds - what are they, Bubbles?

"They're swans," replied Bubbles. "They are very elegant aren't they - despite their long necks. It's a good job they are covered in warm feathers because they'd have to have very long scarves to keep themselves warm!"

Everyone laughed. "And there's a heron!" shouted Edward as he saw a bird with a long beak and very long legs standing in the shallows. "He'll be fishing for his lunch." And, sure enough, the heron suddenly dipped his beak into the water with a splash and captured a fish.

"The trees over there have hardly any leaves left," pointed out Lizzie, "but look at the huge number of red berries!" The berries were indeed a colourful sight.

"And, look," whispered Henry. "Isn't that a blackbird feasting on them?"

The other bears stopped to look and saw the blackbird greedily picking off berries. "He'll be full up very soon at that rate!" laughed Crackers. Then another bird flew over to join in. Bubbles thought it was probably a greenfinch.

Walking on, the bears spotted movement at the other side of the pond behind some bushes. Vicky recognized the animals first. "Look - ponies!" she cried. Several white ponies moved into view and then stood staring at the bears.

"They're looking at us just like we're looking at them!" laughed Scary. "I bet they don't see a group of teddy bears out here very often!"

Everyone giggled. The ponies raised their heads, snorted and cantered away. The bears giggled even more.

"Look! Look what I've found!" shouted Harry. The other bears looked all around. Where had Harry gone? They eventually found him hiding under the biggest mushroom any of them had ever seen! "If it had been raining," declared Charlie, "Harry would be quite dry under there! It's huge! Enough room for hundreds of fairies!"

Boo had also been looking in the grass as he'd walked along. "These are very pretty!" he called out. "Come and look at the lovely flowers!"

The others moved closer and Boo pointed out some very large clover flowers, much bigger than any they had back home in their garden. "Everything seems to be much bigger out here!" he proclaimed.

"I didn't think there would still be any wild flowers out at this time of the year - I'm glad there are still some left."

Before anyone had even noticed, they were back at the start of their walk. "Wow!" exclaimed Henry. "You were right, Scary. The more we looked around, the quicker the time went by."

All this walking and looking had made the bears very hungry so they decided they needed to get back to their cottage for a nice bowl of hot soup. But they were happy they'd had such a lovely Autumn walk.

Maybe if you are out and about walking this Autumn you can see just how many interesting things you can find too.