Exmoor holiday

I thought that, now Mrs blue tit is sat on her seven eggs, I would post about our family holiday to Exmoor, North Devon. I have some bad news about the robin nest in our garden, but I'll save it for another time. So where exactly were we located? The dot on the map below shows the location of our cottages in relation to the rest of Exmoor national park, and the map in the bottom left corner of the image shows where Exmoor is in relation to the rest of the country, for those of you from other countries.

Before I go any further, I'd like to just mention that my Auntie Rose who was on holiday with us in Exmoor has just started a wildlife blog about their garden in north-west England. She's really, really enthusiastic about gardening (particularly growing veg on their family allotment) and wildlife in general. Its great that she's entered the blogging world, and I'm sure you'll enjoy her garden (and further afield) experiences into the future just as much as I will.

Exmoor is a fantastic place to see wildlife. One thing I noticed while we were there was the huge variety of habitats. Just some of these include: coniferous and broadleaf woodland, moorland, marshland, rivers and streams, farmland, thick hedgerows and coastal habitats. So we were able to see a wide range of birds throughout the week. In fact, a total of 43 species were seen, despite the fact we didn't visit a single nature reserve in the whole week. Each of those birds were seen out and about on various walks within about a 10 mile radius of the cottage.

Even the area within a mile of where the cottage was located was filled with plenty of birds to see. The common spring warblers could be heard singing along the hedgerows of the fields in healthy numbers. It was often quite difficult to spot them though, particularly chiffchaffs. The willow warblers seemed to be more common and were slightly easier to spot. The photos below show an individual that made its way to the outer areas of the hedgerows:

In the farmland surrounding the cottage, I heard the classic British sound of skylarks singing. It really is so hard to pick them out in the sky, so I was unable to get any photos. I saw one for about a minute before I lost it again. Amazingly, one landed on a fence post just a few metres from where I was standing but it flew high into the sky before I could get my camera out.

In the fields, wheatears could be seen, although they were camouflaged quite well and were also difficult to see. A couple of record shots can be seen below. It is only the second time I have seen a wheatear, so I did find it difficult to identify them at first.

We also visited the towns of Lynton and Lynmouth, and walked up the huge river valleys to the top where we had an excellent view of the surrounding environment. A photo of the river at the bottom of the valley can be seen below:

We made our way up the winding path to the top of the valley- which was very hard work! Along the way, we saw this peacock butterfly on the path...

As we walked up I became aware of a bird song which I hadn't come across before... a pied flycatcher. I hadn't seen one before so I was pretty happy to see one. I also know that their populations are in decline, so it was great to be able to see one before their populations get potentially dangerously low. Annoyingly, as I tried to take a photo, the camera automatically focussed on the tree trunk in the foreground rather than the branch with the flycatcher on. By the time I had switched to manual focus, it had flown off. See if you can spot the flycatcher in the photo below...

And when we got to the top of the valley, we were lucky enough to see these stunning views. Looking down on the valley and buildings, it looked almost like somewhere in Switzerland or somewhere similar. It really was an impressive view. We took the time to sit in the sun here and ate our lunch before moving on.

Whilst we were up there, we were lucky enough to see a family of peregrine falcons squabbling and circling above just before we ate our lunch. It was great to see such an impressive bird so close up. I have seen peregrines before, but never four of them at once, so close to us. The sheer speed of the falcons was incredible.

Another day, we wandered along a stretch of the East Lyn River which was owned by the National Trust- the actual site was called Watersmeet. The river here had pretty much the same habitat as the river photographed above. I spotted a pair of dippers as they collected water insects to take to a nest in a crack in the rock at the edge of the river. One of them came close enough to have its picture taken, clearly with various grubs in its bill. I always think of dippers as being water robins- they just seem similar in so many ways... apart from their habitats. Anyway, the photos I managed to get can be seen below:

We also visited the coast several times throughout the week. The photo below shows a linnet which we saw in some gorse as we walked along a coastal path:

I could post so much more about our sightings that week but I think I'll leave it for now- this posting is long enough as it is. I may add a list of the species I saw throughout the week another time. Anyway, enough rambling, I hope you all have a great bank holiday tomorrow, and I'll be back with more news from our blue tit nest. Bye for now though :-)

P.S. I have just added a post for the 25th April with a video of our male blue tit feeding the female on the nest- I didn't get around to uploading it on the day :-)