Just time this morning for a stroll over to one of our local parks before the rain came.
There are still plenty of dragonflies around but I didn’t see much in the way of bird life except for a grey heron (and coots and moorhens) although redstarts have been reported recently.
It’s a lovely spot but not as wonderful as it looks because it’s next to the motorway and very noisy.
A very popular bird watching area local to us is Chew Valley Lake, just a few miles to the south of Bristol. The lake was created in the early 1950s (officially opened in 1956) to provide water for the city of Bristol. I remember at that time standing in the street waving my Union Flag. I hasten to add that this was in no way a demonstration of political affiliation the likes of which we are currently seeing a lot, I was simply lining the street with my Junior School to see Queen Elizabeth II as she made her way to open the lake. That’s what you did for entertainment in those days.
We last visited Chew Valley on May 16th when, even after a dry start to the summer, the lake was surprisingly full to the brim. We were quite surprised today to see how low the water had dropped over the summer in the very dry spell we have had. Today we had a few showers but I don’t think it would have made much a difference to the water levels.
Our main reason for visiting, in fact, is that a white-tailed eagle has been at the lake for the last few days. We had no luck on that score and, as a consequence of the low water levels, we didn’t see that many birds up close.
Nonetheless, we really enjoyed the scenery and enjoyed another day birding.
Today we had a walk along the Severn Estuary further south than WWT Slimbridge, which we have visited a lot recently, and closer to home. There is a section of the south west footpath between the two Severn Bridge crossings close to where the old Severn ferry used to operate at Aust and which is often a good place to view birds.
The weather is beginning to break and we managed to do this walk between showers and were very lucky not to get wet. We had views of a variety of birds but most at some distance.
We were looking for somewhere to go to avoid the crowds of Bank holiday Monday and hit on the Forest of Dean. It was certainly very peaceful and a great place to be on another very hot day.
I thought we might do well with dragonflies but the pool near the car park at RSPB Nagshead was completely dried up.
We didn’t have a lot of luck with birds either except at the Campbell hide, which had a muddy patch in front of it, we did see a few coal tits and 2 hawfinch. I have only seen hawfinch on a couple of occasions and it was a first for my wife. Good choice then.
In praise of WWT Slimbridge
When I was young my mum and dad, bless them, took me to Slimbridge a couple of times: I can’t say I was very impressed; I was more into team games and I would rather get muddy by diving around on the sports field than sloshing about in wellies. My parents obviously thought it a worthy thing to do but clearly I don’t think it was really in their DNA either and so, as it was fairly expensive, we didn’t go too often.
I can’t believe how much we love going there now. I know we dodge the hordes of children (and their parents/grandparents) by heading for the hides (rather than the pens with lots of exotic birds) but I do recognise that Slimbridge is a fabulous place and does amazing work to get youngsters interested in wildlife.
Sadly we see lots of bad parenting there but today we met a young boy (and his dad) as we were heading out to the Severn Estuary who stopped us and told us that if we continued on this pathway we could follow a walkway which took us down to the estuary where we might see, if we looked carefully, curlew and ringed plovers. We were both impressed that his dad didn’t interrupt him but allowed him to be our advisor. This young boy was thoroughly enjoying his day and clearly his dad had encouraged him enough to reach this point. It was a very refreshing encounter.
Down on the estuary we clearly didn’t look carefully enough as we only heard a curlew and the ringed plovers were too far away for our “old” eyes.
However, we did see loads whilst we were at Slimbridge. I hope you enjoy some of my photos from today.
A variety of waders at Slimbridge today.
It was pleasantly warm but fairly dull for our morning visit. I have nothing to complain about though compared with the poor farmers who must be really struggling with this exceptionally dry spell in this part of the world. They have definitely something to complain about this year!
We managed to get to visit the RHS Garden Rosemoor near Great Torrington today.
They were busy getting ready for their annual flower show which starts tomorrow. That and the dull weather meant that there were not too many people around, although more than my photos suggest – hoorah!
Hope you enjoy the photos as much as we enjoyed the garden (in spite of a short rain shower).
An evening stroll around the estate.
We saw and heard a fair number of birds (common buzzard, carrion crow, goldfinches, gold crest, blue tit, chaffinch, stock dove, wood pigeon, great spotted woodpecker, house martins and swallows) but especially enjoyed the trees and shrubs.
There’s another world out there!
Photos from a slightly different morning walk on the Stafford Barton Estate in Devon before it got too hot for us with temperatures reaching 30C in the afternoon.
For 47 years of my working life as a teacher I had to take my holidays with the majority of the population in July and August. So now, in my retirement, we rarely go away at this time of the year. However, it’s such an exceptionally wonderful summer that we could’t resist another trip when we saw a cottage advertised on a private estate in north Devon. It’s a beautiful part of the country and only just over a 100 miles from home. The fact that there is a major RHS garden just down the road was an added attraction. So far we haven’t visited RHS Garden Rosemoor as we are so enjoying the peace and quiet of the gardens, the heaths and the woodland of the estate and visiting a couple of local nature reserves.
The estate took on a different tone on our second full day here when the owners opened the gardens to the local villages and we were treated to live music, local ales and ciders and cream teas on the lawns. What is there not to like about all this?
This is such a special place that I wanted to keep a memory of the estate and so have prepared a separate page which you can share by following this link to Stafford Barton Estate August 2025
As for the nature opportunities: so far I have been able to practice my camera skills on the house martins and swallows but have had some difficulty capturing the large flocks (a charm indeed!) of goldfinches which swoop down to gorge on the seed heads in the lovely meadows which are left for the wildlife. There has been plenty of wildlife to photograph and keep me busy on our walks too.
That’s three day’s done with three more to go. I thought I wouldn’t get a chance to do a blog during the holiday as the only fault I could find with our accommodation was that the broad band was slow and yet three days in and the owner has got BT Open Reach to upgrade it! What service!
Local parks are a great place to see wildlife up close.
On a visit to a suburban park a little outside my local area I was very encouraged to see how much local volunteers were doing to provide information about the wildlife in the park and just as pleased to see that the information boards were being respected and not covered in graffiti.
It was also very encouraging to see how many people were showing a genuine interested in the birds.
The WWT (Wildlife and Wetlands Trust) is a growing, global community of nature lovers who do brilliant things for nature, especially encouraging young people to engage with nature. However, we visit WWT Slimbridge in the school holidays with some trepidation as we know it is going to be packed with very noisy, excitable children. Yet today (as most times) we were able to visit certain parts of the reserve in relative peace and quiet. The only children we came across were well-behaved and already enthusiastic nature lovers, generally accompanied by knowledgeable and encouraging grandparents.
This is the time of the year when many “birders” turn to butterflies but today there was plenty to keep us engaged and the only butterflies of note were red admirals. We had a good walk down to the Severn Estuary and , although the tide was really too high to see much on the water, we saw plenty en route.
A spoonbill, common cranes and curlews (heard but not seen) all too far for my lens.
Martin's Bird Blog & Nature Photos 