Starting at the Woods Mill car park (owned by the Sussex Wildlife Trust), you head out the entrance and turning right, walk the 300 metres to Oreham Common where you turn right into the private road. Here in spring and summer nightingales and turtle doves can be heard while winter time can produce viewable bullfinches.
Follow the footpaths through the houses and you will come across fields adjoining the reserve, good for fieldfares and redwings in winter. Take the bridge over the small stream and up a steepish hill to Sands Farm, where wheatear, whinchat or yellow wagtail might be seen on migration.
Walking on the public footpaths around Sands Farm where large flocks of finches can congregate in winter, you then take the path back down towards Woods Mill and enter the reserve and walk along the small stream where buzzards and the resident
kestrels may be hunting. Enter the main reserve and join the nature trail that takes you along the side of the lake where you might see the now resident little grebes or even the blue flash of a kingfisher.
Follow the trail through the woodland which holds a variety of woodland species such as nuthatch, treecreeper and great spotted woodpeckers and eventually, it takes you back to the car park. The walk takes about 2 hours, there are some stiles and a steepish slope. It can be muddy after rain.