Sidmouth Nature

Sid Valley Biodiversity Group Walk - Weston 10.00am Saturday 29th July 2023 Weston  I have been in Sidmouth for less than a year and I still have many wonderful nature sites to discover so when I found out at the 'last minute' that the biodiversity group had a wild flower walk at Weston, somewhere I had not yet been, it was too good an opportunity to miss. Some hasty rearrangements to initial plans and I was in the Grammar Lane car park in Weston ready to go at 10.00am! It was overcast with some light rain as we left the car park and walked through the gate but I was optimistic and left my waterproofs behind.  This walk takes you through broadleaf woodland onto bramble and bracken scrub. Then, at the cliff top, the path runs alongside a wild flower meadow before turning back towards Weston along a metalled road. Four habitats means a lot of variety in what can be seen as one moves from one habitat type to the next and so I finished the day with 143 species on my list and, of c...

U3A Nature Explorers - Delderfield 10.00am Wednesday 5th July 2023 The Delderfield meadow For our July nature expedition the U3A nature explorers explored the Delderfield nature reserve which seems an appropriate thing for nature explorers to do! Having 'warmed up' with a walk up the western slopes from the Manor Car Park in town we entered the reserve around 10.30 and spent an hour admiring the flowers and looking deeper into the meadow and hedgerow to see what we could find. Delderfield is not a large site but with nature reserves it is not always size that is important. Delderfield is a fragment of how hay meadows used to be having seemingly escaped agricultural 'improvement' over the years. The sheer density of flowers is a joy to behold in mid-summer. One might say the diversity of flora is not that great, we found 33 species in total, but that is not important, it is the diversity of insect life that it supports which adds significantly to its value.  The meadow i...