As is often my want, I very much enjoy natural history as much as most other history, with the former getting featured here on the blog often included in my adventures 'On Tour', and whilst including the more exotic species encountered in my overseas visits to places such as Australia, New Zealand, and Sri Lanka over the years, it's nice to emphasise now and again the amazing creatures we have in 'Blighty' and in particular in my home part of the country here in Devon, with links to other similar posts to be found in the side bar to the blog under 'Devon Sites and Wildlife'.
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| Tommy Brock, as illustrated by Beatrix Potter in The Tale of Mr. Tod |
In recent years my own back garden, not exactly in the wilds of the Devon countryside, has been host to several interesting visitors, some nocturnal, with our resident badgers making regular visits and turning the back lawn into a mini version of the Somme battlefield, with the craters left after they have dug it over in search of 'Leather Jacket' grubs, one of their favourite night time snacks.
These regular visits were doing Carolyn's head in as she very much enjoys her gardening, and to confirm our suspects, she installed a wildlife camera, triggered by any movement and the clip above soon confirmed who our new neighbours were. These are some clips from the hidden camera which can be clicked on to play.
However with a large tunnel dug under the back garden fence, the route in was soon being used by other visitors including a local hedgehog, and a couple of foxes, with one of their family, a young vixen boldly strolling through our garden in broad daylight!
The European badger (
Meles meles), also known as the Eurasian badger, is native to Europe and West Asia and parts of Central Asia, and in the UK it is simply known as the "badger".
The badgers are a bit of a pain, but for the sake of having to reseed the lawn each autumn and occasionally tread down the divots of grass, rather like a golf club green keeper, it is rather special to have the largest wild mammal in the UK visiting our garden, and the fox and hedgehog make it feel like a rural oasis in the town.
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| The range of the European badger |
As if to emphasise how much the British wildlife like what Carolyn has done to the garden we were visited by two birds, never before seen in our back yard, and to have both of them visit on the same day was even more special.
I just happened to look out into the back garden when I noticed some movement on the lawn and spotted a Green Woodpecker, making best use of the badger holes as it tucked into its favourite snack, ants.
The Green Woodpecker (
Picus viridis) is the largest of the three woodpeckers that breed in Britain, and has a heavy-looking body, short tail and a strong, long bill. It's green on its upperparts with a paler belly, bright yellow rump and red on the top of its head. The black 'moustache' has a red centre in males, and the bird has a bouncing flight and a loud, laughing call.
Eventually this female headed off into a nearby tree and I carried on taking a few pictures with the camera, and was getting ready to put it away when my eye was drawn to further movement in the same tree.
The Great Spotted Woodpecker (
Dendrocopos major) is the next most common woodpecker seen here in the UK, but I have never seen the two species together in the same tree but was very happy that they chose to gather in my garden.
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| A male Great Spotted Woodpecker (Dendrocopos major), and a female Green Woodpecker (Picus viridis) visiting our garden this year. |
The male Great Spotted, which this appears to be, has a bright red patch on the back of the head and young birds have a red crown.
As well as woodpeckers, the garden and local paths have been blessed with an abundance of fledgling Robins (
Erithacus rubecula) this year and the one I photographed below proved particularly bold, happy to have his or her portrait made, and displaying the developing read breast to replace the pale light-brown spotted one in very young birds, the spots still clearly visible.
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| A fledgling Robin (Erithacus rubecula) |
This summer in the UK was wall-to-wall-blue for most of the year which meant that Peggy the black Labrador got to help me with the barbecue and clear up the odd dropped piece of sausage.
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| Peggy helping with one of the family barbecues this summer |
That weather obviously encouraged a few warbirds to put in an appearance over the garden during the summer months, that included a Piper L-4 Grasshopper, sporting its invasion stripes, a sight that would have been the scourge of German troops in Normandy, under strict orders not to open fire on the slow moving aircraft for fear of bringing down on them a barrage of retributive artillery fire, known as a 'stonk' in Royal Artillery parlance.
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| A Piper L-4 Grasshopper, sporting its invasion stripes, flies over the garden. |
As well as the Piper L-4 we are blessed locally with our very own Spitfire that operates out of the former Battle of Britain aerodrome, RAF Exeter and now Exeter Airport.
Our spitfire is a regular site patrolling overhead and the owner is known to waggle his wings in response to those of us who appreciate his fly overs by making the appropriate signal with arms raised.
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| Our local Exeter based Spitfire on patrol. |
In recent years the nearby estuary to the River Otter has been allowed to return to a more wild state, which has enabled the return of many species of water birds as well as plenty of fish in the river itself, and we now have a resident colony of European beavers living in the river as evidenced by the occasional heavily chewed tree stump.
As well as the many ducks, herons, egrets and cormorants, the estuary attracted a pair of ospreys, but they unfortunately were not to be seen on one of my several visits this summer.
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| The River Otter is looking very clean and regularly hosts teams of fish which is a big attraction for the birds. |
Of course with camera in hand, if the birds aren't drawing my attention, then a beautifully restored six ton 6 x 6 American prime mover cargo truck, seen here this summer in Bicton Gardens is bound to get snapped, this type of vehicle a likely regular site in our part of the world in 1944 as our local area played host to the the US 4th (Ivy - IV) Division in preparation for its invasion of Normandy via Utah Beach.
As well as the River Otter estuary, we also got to enjoy plenty of beach walks along our part of the Jurassic Coast with the famous Devon Red sandstone cliffs playing host to our local pair of Peregrine Falcons (
Falco peregrinus).
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| The larger female seen here on her nest site in the cliffs looks out over the beach below. |
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| Nearby the much smaller male bird keeps watch over his mate and has a ready eye for an opportunity of taking an unwary pigeon. |
A careful eye turned towards the shoreline rocks and rock pools revealed a beautiful Rock Pipit (Anthus petrosus), much larger than its cousin the Meadow Pipit, busy hunting for food and no doubt keeping an eye on the Peregines.
Inland from the Jurassic Coast is the remains of the ancient river that flowed at that time from what is now the French coast to our part of Devon and revealed in the pebble beach at nearby Budleigh Salterton and at the very unique pebble bed common, Woodbury Common where we like to walk with Peggy in the summer when dogs are banned from the local beaches.
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| Common Spotted Orchids dotted the paths across Woodbury Common this spring. |
In spring time the Common plays host to its own eco system of plants and wildlife which included this year a dramatic display of Common Spotted Orchids (
Dactylorhiza fuchsii) , which are quite small, and easily missed, but well worth inspecting a little closer.
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| A Common Spotted Orchid( Dactylorhiza fuchsii), one of many seen on Woodbury Common this year. |
Later in the year with autumn under way the paths over Woodbury become festooned with new blooms peculiar to the time of year that included this rather stunning Amanita muscaria, commonly known as the fly agaric or fly amanita or simply red toadstool.
This funghi, like all of them found in the wild, have to be treated with respect, as ingestion of this mushroom can cause poisoning, especially in children and those seeking its hallucinogenic effects, due to psychoactive compounds like muscimol and ibotenic acid, that said, fatal poisonings are extremely rare.
Of course these are your classic 'fairy-tale' red mushrooms with this a very fine example, and I'm looking forward to showing my granddaughter when she's a little older with of course all the usual warnings.
I hope you have enjoyed my little excursion away from all things military-history, but normal service will be resumed as my work on His Majesty's 2nd Combined Light Infantry Battalion circa 1777 reaches a conclusion with a showcase post coming next, and my attention turns this week to the inaugural invitation game in my repurposed room as I gather with Tom, Will and friends to play the Battle of Tapae 101 AD as Emperor Trajan goes head to head with the King of the Dacians, Decebalus.
As always, more anon.
JJ
