ONE of Britain’s rarest birds, the dimunitive Dartford warbler, which was threatened with extinction, with just a handful of pairs in Dorset in the 1960s, has made an impressive come-back, with 183 pairs recorded on RSPB reserves in 2021. The recently launched RSPB Ecology Report records this good news, which is attributed to concerted conservation…
THINK of Devon and food and you instantly picture cream teas and the finest fresh fish, but the county has a lot more to offer on the culinary front, from brewery tours to wine tasting to food festivals. Here’s a taste of what’s available across the county this spring and summer: Brewery Tour at Salcombe…
… a walk along the River Otter WE can’t fly anywhere and all our favourite places in Scotland are booked up into 2022, so it’s day trips for us this summer. When we read about guided walks to see beavers on the River Otter, we booked up for one immediately. The best holiday we…
THE Netflix hit Bridgerton had viewers round the world hooked on the roller-coaster love affair of beautiful Daphne Bridgerton and her dashing Duke. Many of the scenes were filmed in Bath, and this year’s Bath Festivals will include a walking tour of the locations. The Regency romp was a storming success with more than 82…
A TEAM of carpenters, tilers and scaffolders have rescued Bere Marsh Farm’s barn owls from winter homelessness in the nick of time. Just a few months after the Countryside Restoration Trust purchased the farm near Shillingstone, an appeal was launched to raise funds to repair the building which has been the barn owls’ home for…
THE National Trust has announced plans to release Eurasian beavers[at two sites in the south of England next spring to help with flood management and to improve biodiversity. The beaver reintroductions will be the Trust’s first, linking to its ambitions to create priority habitats for nature and to increase the diversity of species and wildlife…
A NEW scheme by the National Trust aims to return rivers to their natural path to reduce the impact of climate change, flood risk and to make space for nature, including the endangered water vole. Allowing rivers to meander like ‘the branches of a tree’ rather than along a single channel will slow river flow,…
AN important Iron Age hillfort and other archaeological remains, covering 73 acres at Ham Hill Country Park has been purchased with £235,000 from the National Heritage Memorial Fund (NHMF), funding from the Friends of Ham Hill and a capital grant from South Somerset District Council. The area that has been saved for the nation makes…
THE South West Wiltshire MP Dr Andrew Murrison is one of 508 MPs who are planting trees as part of the Queen’s Commonwealth Canopy, a network of forest conservation initiatives to mark Her Majesty’s lifetime of service to the Commonwealth. Dr Murrison has planted silverbirch and rowan trees in Biss Meadows Country Park in Trowbridge….
FOR the first time in 30 years, one of Britain’s rarest and most endearing mammals, the water vole, could now be spotted swimming by the river banks of its former home on the National Trust’s Holnicote Estate on Exmoor. Early in September, 150 water voles were reintroduced at six carefully chosen sites on the estate,…