Stunning Somerset

Somerset is one of my favourite places to visit in Britain and it is stunning on so many levels. Some might say that it does not boast high mountains, rugged coastlines or magnificent beaches; but I would argue that its beauty is much more subtle than that. There is the beauty in its landscapes, in its historic buildings, in its friendly people and its wildlife is truly stunning.
During our Somerset trip we stayed in a great little holiday cottage called Little Spring Barn in the tiny village of Blackford, near Wedmore on the south side of the Mendip Hills:

Little Spring Barn

The cottage overlooked a lovely garden complete with a large pond fed directly from a natural spring (hence the name of the barn):

Garden With Pond

When we first arrived we were greeted by the guard dog, which after some initial barking went on to give us a tail-wagging friendly welcome every time we returned from our trips out. Her name was Speck and if I could have got away with it I would have brought her home with me....

Speck the Guard Dog

Don't be fooled by her size and friendly face, she was there to keep the foxes away from the chickens and a good job she did to. She slept outdoors in her own little kennel and was also ready to bark at any intruder, and we witnessed out the upstairs window why she had to be on her guard:

I wonder if Speck was the reason why the fox had a limp?
After a peaceful night in the barn we were ready for our first outing, which was a trip to Barrington Court near Yeovil. We were meeting up with our niece Fiona and her family who live in Yeovil.
Barrington Court was a lovely place with lots of open spaces for young Harry to run around in plus an old stately home with lots of nooks and crannies for him to explore:

With Fiona & Family at Barrington Court

Flower Beds at Barrington Court

Me, Fiona and the Barrington Court Jester



We had a really good day there and the weather was lovely. As a bonus we were treated to a delicious roast chicken dinner back at Fiona's house...........mmm! Then it was a drive back to the 'Barn' for a good night's sleep in the hay loft (it was really a luxurious bed in the tastefully decorated bedroom).

The next day we took a trip to a nearby nature reserve called Shapwick Heath which sits slap-bang in the middle of the Somerset Levels. It is a fantastic place for wildlife as it has a wide variety of habitats including reed-beds, woodlands, open water and wildflower meadows:

 

Shapwick Heath NNR - Reed-beds

Shapwick Heath NNR - Noah's Lake

 The main reason for the abundance of wildlife is the fantastic habitats it offers insects; and where there is plenty of insect life there is plenty of birds, mammals, amphibians, reptiles etc. There are those that feed on the insects and those that feed on the insect-feeders.
Let us start with the insects themselves, and in particular the dragonflies and damselflies. There is no place in Britain I have been (even Norfolk) that come close to featuring such an abundance of damselflies and dragonflies. They are however not the easiest to photograph or video, but here are a few examples from Shapwick Heath.
Firstly a mass of Common Blue Damselflies sunning themselves on the brambles:

These blue damselflies can have slightly different patterns but in general are all the common blue variety. However I did manage to get a short video of another species of blue damselfly, known imaginatively as the Variable Damselfly:

As I said these damselflies are everywhere and in these shelter corners can collect in huge numbers.
There are also a large number of their bigger cousins, the Dragonflies, however these incredible predators are very hard to capture on video as they fly so fast.
I did however manage to film a couple of Four-spot Chasers having a dog-fight over a prime hunting perch:

I just had to be patient until one of them landed for a few second for a breather so I could film it close up. The Four-spot Chaser is one of the more common species of dragonfly, but I think you will agree that it is a magnificent creature never-the less:

Our attempts to emulate the flying prowess of a dragonfly appear somewhat cumbersome; as a helicopter flew overhead just to emphasis the point:

The large water channels that run through the reserve and drain all the water from the surrounding fields are called Rhynes (pronounced 'reens' by the locals) and these are not only a haven for insects but also for insect-loving fish:

Where there are fish that eat insects there will be birds that eat fish; such as the Great Crested Grebe, the Heron and of course the elegant Great White Egret:

Fair enough it might not look so elegant when it is flying, but it does when it is on the ground; think of it like an albino Heron.......but more graceful.......and elegant!!
Some birds cut out the middle man and feed directly on the insects; birds such swallows, swifts, wagtails and of course warblers such as this noisy, territorial, Sedge Warbler:

Some of these warblers such as Sedge Warblers, Whitethroat and Chiffchaff are summer visitors to Britain, spending their winters south of the Sahara Desert. They fly all this way just so they can eat our insects and feed them to their chicks, a long way to go for a few damselfly!!
Before we leave Shapwick NNR here is a video of another insect eater............a Common Frog:

Enough wildlife for now, we did go other places and see other things. For instance we went to the seaside, Weston-Super-Mare to be precise and had a really super day:

Oil Painting of Weston-Super-Mare Beach

It isn't really an oil painting of the beach, just my shaky camera work.

Anyway, one place that Moira always wanted to visit was the Jill Dando Memorial Garden at WSM, so we went there first:

Moira at Jill's Garden

 The garden was created by Alan Titchmarsh in memory of Jill Dando, the TV presenter who was murdered on her own doorstep a few years ago. She originally came from Weston.

In Jill's Garden at Weston

It was a lovely tranquil place, only a short distance from the busy promenade.
I have to confess that I also enjoyed the wildlife in the garden pond:

After a cup of coffee and a bun in the café at the gardens we had a wander along the promenade to visit the famous Weston-Super-Mare Grand Pier. The original pier burnt down in 2008 and was rebuilt a couple of years later, so I had never been on the new pier but had fond memories of the penny slot machines on the old pier.

On the Grand Pier at Weston

Treats This Way

I was pleased to find that they still had a lot of penny machines (well 2p machines) on the Grand Pier and we must have spent about an hour playing them. It was great fun and Moira even won a ceramic teddy bear to take home as a memento:

Pierre the Bear

I have christened him Pierre, which is a Grand name for a bear (or maybe Teddy Edward!!)
After a bite to eat at a water-front café we headed back to the cottage, taking a slight detour so we could drive through the famous Cheddar Gorge (no it is not made of cheese!)
Moira took some snaps as we drove through the gorge:

At the Start of Cheddar Gorge

Driving Through the Gorge

Watch that Car!!

We stopped in the lovely little village of Cheddar at the foot of the Gorge and had an ice cream before we headed back to the cottage.
The next day we took a little trip down memory lane and visited the pretty town of Somerton, where my sister and her family use to stay. We enjoyed browsing through the various shops, had a cream tea in one of the little cafes and posed beside the historic market cross:

Moira at Somerton Market Cross

On the way back from Somerton we visited another nature reserve belonging to the RSPB. It was called Greylake and although much smaller than Shapwick NNR it was not short of wildlife to look at, some of it very interesting (honest!):
As we walked along a grassy path leading to the bird hides we noticed a male Mute Swan on the path up ahead. We then noticed there was a whole family of Swans on the path, and mother Swan decided that it was time to move all of their cygnets back into the water:

Father Swan did not look best pleased that we had disturbed their siesta. I counted eight healthy cygnets.....fantastic!!
These were not the only baby birds we saw at RSPB Greylake; there were young Coots learning to dive, young Lapwings running around in long grass trying to avoid being trampled by cattle feeding in the meadow and young Mallards also dodging the cow's hooves as they followed on behind mum heading for the safety of the water.
We were also fortunate enough to see a few less common bird species such as this Reed Warbler which made a fleeting appearance from within the reeds:

One of the key reasons that the Reed Warbler is becoming less common is that it is the preferred host for the Cuckoo; which lays a single egg in the Reed Warbler's nest when it is left unattended. The egg is so well disguised that the Reed Warbler cannot distinguish it from its own eggs and continues to incubate them. When the Cuckoo chick hatches it proceeds to throw all the other eggs out of the nest so it can be the sole chick raised by the Reed Warbler.
This has really started to impact on Reed Warbler numbers over recent years, and we even heard a Cuckoo calling from a nearby tree not far from where we saw the Reed Warbler at RSPB Greylake, so it may well have been another victim.
As well as the Reed Warbler and the Cuckoo we saw another exciting summer visitor...................... a Hobby:

This fantastic falcon hangs in the sky before swooping down at great speed to catch small birds and large flying insects; which its plucks out of the air with ease, often eating them whilst on the wing.
Even the voracious Dragonfly is no match for the speed and agility of this top predator and often features on its menu.
The scientific name for the Hobby (Falco subbuteo) was also alleged to be the inspiration behind another hobby, the table-top football game called Subutteo.
Our next trip out was a much more sedate affair, it was a lovely sunny day and we went on a mission to find one of Britain's rarest butterflies...........the Large Blue!!
Acting on a tip from our good friend Jim (who is a keen birder/butterflier) we headed to Collard Hill near Glastonbury to find this elusive creature. It wasn't a particularly high hill but did afford a lovely view across Somerset:

View from Collard Hill

I could see immediately why butterflies would be attracted to this area as it was full of lots of lovely nectar-bearing wildflowers (including this pretty Pyramidal Orchid :

Pyramidal Orchid

Collard Hill Wildflowers

The Large Blue however prefers not to lay its eggs on orchids but on wild Thyme and Marjoram, but that is not the intriguing part of its lifecycle.
When the caterpillars hatch from the eggs they initially feed on the buds of these 'host' plants then after their third moult they drop to the ground where they are carried by red ants back to the ants' nest (they appear to mimic an ant grub to fool the ants). Here they feed on the ants' eggs and grubs until they are large enough to hibernate over winter inside the nest. The following spring they pupate before crawling back out the nest to spend the rest of their life as a butterfly. In other words they are a bit like a Cuckoo.
Anyway these butterflies are very difficult to find if you are on your own and don't really know what you are looking for. Fortunately for us there were a handful of helpful butterfly enthusiast about and they pointed us in the right direction, so here it is:

Large Blue Butterfly

Don't be fooled by the name........it is tiny........... each wing is about the size of a twenty pence piece........ just as well there were some helpful Large Blue spotters about.
With that rarity in the bag we took a trip along to visit one of my favourite English cities............Wells. Often described as England's smallest city (although in reality the City of London is smaller) it retains lots of its medieval buildings, including the magnificent Wells Cathedral:

Wells Cathedral

The main square in Wells is surrounded in historic buildings:



Moira in Wells

And the wonderful Bishop's Palace has a dramatic entrance and moat, with swans that swim up to the entrance gate and ring a bell to be fed (honestly, they do!!)

Bishop's Palace Entrance Gate

Croquet on Bishop's Lawn

Moira at Bishop's Palace



Bishop's Palace Moat

Just a beautiful and peaceful place to visit....I love it.

So that is our Somerset trip in a nutshell (albeit a very big nutshell with lots of photos and videos); never-the-less I hoped you enjoyed it and can understand why I think Somerset is stunning and well worth a visit.

I'll give you a rest for a few weeks before I post another blog

Take care,

Teddy Edward