This is my fourth trip with Wildlife Worldwide and they have all been terrific and very different from one another. Our leader was Mike Dilger, perhaps best known for his appearances on The One Show, also an author and expert on birds, dragonflies, damselflies and more, especially plants – his degree was in botany. I found him hugely likeable and we got on like a house on fire. It was a lovely small group of people, six at most, much of the time just four of us.
My journey down was a straightforward two hours on motorways but as is so often the way, the very last bit was quite a nightmare. I had made time for a pub lunch nearby and my satnav informed me that I was just minutes away from the Woodbury Park Hotel. We were due to arrive at 2 pm, my arrival time was estimated at 2.01. It was not to be. I drove around and around, over and over again, always grinding to a halt at this same spot.
This, surely, was at most a bridleway, not the road to a large golfing hotel complex. It is in fact a continuation of Warkidons Way and did lead to the hotel when I at last decided to trust both my car’s satnav and Google Maps on my phone. The track was extremely rough and rutted and I am surprised I didn’t damage my car. It wasn’t terribly long but it felt as though it went on for miles as I fielded calls from Mike wondering where I was. The lanes in Devon can be extremely narrow – Dog Lane with all of its twists and potholes will be imprinted on my mind forever. At least I saw a Wren. I apologised profusely when I did turn up in highly stressed state (I hate being late) at 2.30 to find everyone waiting for me in reception – everyone was very good about it but there was a good deal of ribbing for the rest of the trip.
The hotel was fine – my room was spacious and had a small balcony, the food was acceptable to very good. The golfers whom I had rather been dreading were not the snooty type at all. I had asked Mike at the end of his introduction whether he thought I should keep quiet about the fact that I find golf pretty ridiculous. They seemed to be a friendly bunch, intent only on having a good time.
The scorching heat was problematic for us – we soldiered on but even short walks were pretty exhausting. Our first visit on Monday afternoon was to Aylesbeare Common, gorgeous heathland looking its very best with that special mix of purple heather and yellow gorse which go together so pleasingly.
There are Bronze Age barrows here, hidden by foliage.
We saw some 80 animal species throughout the trip and we were off to a flying start here, beginning with this Large Skipper.
It had been made clear that this was not a photographic holiday and so some of these photos are less than ideal – much of the wildlife was a long way from us. Mostly though, my camera did not let me down. User error however prevented good images of Azure Damselflies at this pond.
I was fascinated by Whirligig Beetles, who were circling round on the surface just as their name suggests. Apparently they have divided eyes, allowing them to see both above and below the water.
We also spotted Ringlets, Meadow Browns, a Little Blue, Brimstone, Peacock, Marbled White, Gatekeeper and Small Heath Butterflies, Emperor, Brown Hawker and Four-spotted Chaser Dragonflies, as well as an Emerald Moth, a lovely pale green.
Mike also explained the three types of heather we were seeing. Bell Heather is the most familiar with the purple flowers but there’s also Ling (a crossword clue favourite) and Cross-leaved, Erica tetralix, in the second picture below.
In terms of birds we saw Linnets and a Stonechat with his bright red breast and glimpsed a family of Dartford Warblers. Also that afternoon Wood Pigeons, House Sparrows, a Great Spotted Woodpecker, a Buzzard, a Rook and a Carrion Crow. We heard Chiffchaff, Blackcap, and Bullfinch,
I noticed this Ordnance Survey triangulation point and realised I had never really understood them. Having researched it, there is much more to them than meets the eye. They extend deep underground into a large concrete block (the founding block) anchored to the bedrock and they have lower and upper centre marks, a centre pipe, sighting tubes, a brass plate (the spider) for the theodolite, a flush bracket with an ID number and a horizontal line used as a bench mark to calculate the exact height above sea level. The maths is a bit beyond me but in essence using a singular highly accurate baseline on the ground, an angular measurement is taken with a theodolite from one of these to, for example, a mountain peak and then again from a second point. From this it is possible to calculate the exact distance of the mountain top from points A & B without ever actually having to go there. By repeating the process, a network of over 6,500 connected triangles was formed to cover the entire country.
Just as we arrived back at the car park came the delight of seeing this Goldfinch.
After supper it was time for a real highlight – the Otter Estuary Nature Reserve where we hoped to see wild Beavers.
As ever with every guide on these trips, walking distances were wildly underestimated. But we were treated to flocks of Goldfinches and many, many House Martins.
And who doesn’t love Pied Wagtails?
From the bridge and the river path we saw Herring Gulls, Spoonbills, Little Egrets, Oystercatchers, Cormorants, Curlews, Redshanks, Mute Swans, Grey Heron, a Reed Bunting and Shelducks with young.
I have never before used AI on any of my photographs published on this blog, but this photo of a Little Egret, my favourite bird, contrasting so well with the dark green background, was ruined by shafts of sunlight in just the wrong places. To fix this by hand would have been difficult, extremely time-consuming and probably, for me, impossible. So I succumbed.
There were three more young Egrets perched in a tree too.
I had hardly let myself believe I would actually get to see a Beaver in the wild, but we had Mike and another young expert guide. There was quite a bit of charging up and down the river bank but then they were spotted, surprisingly large (although still sub-adult, about two years old), moving fast under the water and then coming out for a rest and a scratch (see head of post). The adrenalin rush made the painful ache in my back, a real problem these days, disappear completely. The river Otter is now home to some 50 Beaver territories and around 150 Beavers in all. To thwart the naysayers, in the village of Otterton not far upstream of where we were, house insurance premiums have been reduced because these wonderful animal have so greatly reduced the risk of flooding.
A beautiful sunset rounded the day off perfectly.
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