Sid Valley Biodiversity Group Walk - Weston

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 course, there would have been more I missed. That is in my view pretty impressive and indicative of what this walk has to offer the nature lover.

At first the path leads through broadleaf woodland with high banks covered with male-fern and hart's-tongue; this is a common habitat in this part of Devon but always a delight to see. Being deep into summer (despite the rain) the leaf canopy is fully developed and so there is little light for flowers on the woodland floor but we did find herb Robert (of course!), enchanter's nightshade, wood avens, red campion, hemp-agrimony, prickly sow thistle and some nice specimens of scurfy twiglet fungus.  

After a while the path starts to incline up out of the woodland and emerges into bramble and bracken scrub. By now the sun had emerged from behind the dark clouds and it was becoming warmer. Warm sunshine and brambles is a wonderful cocktail for insects and we were soon seeing butterflies of various species; large white, red admiral, peacock, comma, meadow brown, speckled wood and, with brambles abundant, lots of gatekeepers. 

There is a bit of a dilemma for the walker here. Does one admire the views along the beautiful 'red coast' to the west or maintain concentration and look for more species of interest. We managed to do a bit of both and soon added a dark bush-cricket lurking deep in the brambles to our list. That was followed by a small number of green shieldbug nymphs and then a pair of mating dock shieldbugs, on clover rather than dock leaves! 

Being more open here flowers became more evident too, notably the common toadflax which was quite widespread. Travellers Joy is well established here as well as wild madder although that is no longer in flower and is turning to seed. 

Reaching the top of the cliff the path turns east along the cliff edge with more bramble scrub to the seaward side and a wild flower meadow to the inland side. Various flowers were still to be found here in late season and those most worthy of mention are probably ploughman's-spikenard, ladies bedstraw, agrimony, musk mallow, restharrow, lesser burdock, slender thistle and lots of common knapweed.

Along this part of the path we were able to add common blue and several holly blue to our species list and then a couple of wall (brown) insisted on sunbathing on the path giving us excellent views of this now scarce butterfly. The wall was not to be the rarest butterfly of the day however as three wood white butterflies fluttered past us; these are presumably second brood as the first brood were out over a month ago.

Eventually the path turns back towards Weston village but that is not the end of the interest as part of the field here has been fenced off to maintain the original flower meadow with corn marigold, cornflower and corncockle growing together just as they did in the 'olden days' before they were sprayed out of existence on nearly the entire farmland of this country.

Not to be outdone, the insects continued to provide interest with an immature great green bush-cricket hiding in the gasses, some tapered drone flies tucked into bramble pollen and marmalade hoverflies were using cat's ear and smooth hawkbit for the same purpose.

As the walk came to an end there was one last treat, a magpie moth flew past us and sought refuge from the sunshine in the depth of the hawthorn hedge but it was not to far in to be seen close up and identified.

I rate that as a top experience and I am very grateful to the SVBG and its leaders for introducing me to it. 
If you want to see my full species list you can find it here: species list

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