Return to Challacombe Farm
I’ve been to Challacombe Farm before. It’s teeming with animals for food and fun
Cuckoos at Emsworthy Mire 2
I’ve arrived earlier today in the hope of seeing Cuckoos. Yesterday was a success, with a high-speed chase, so I have high …
Cuckoos at Emsworthy Mire
I’ve seen a Cuckoo before, but only the outline of a bird perched in the distance. I’d love to see one properly. …
Dartmoor birds
A lockdown lifetime ago we went to Dartmoor for a walk. I say ‘a walk’, but it was more an amble from …
Emsworthy Mire Revisited
I try my luck again to get some decent photographs of the Ring Ouzels at Emsworthy Mire. I have a large flask …
Shaggy Parasols at Emsworthy Mire
There are Parasol mushrooms in the fields at Emsworthy Mire. They are huge, but not as huge as the dinner-plate sized Macrolepiota …
Lone Trees on Dartmoor
A walk from Emsworthy Mire. Dartmoor is an impressive landscape of human destruction. It’s been cut and burnt and grazed. And thousands …
Challacombe Farm
Challacombe Farm is on Dartmoor. It’s part of the 135,000 acres owned by the Duchy of Cornwall to the benefit of Charles …
Challacombe Farm
Being delicious to humans has been one of the most successful evolutionary strategies of recent times. Farm animals now outweigh wild ones, …
The Great Grey Shrike of Emsworthy Mire
I hear that there’s a Great Grey Shrike on Emsworthy Mire on Dartmoor. I’ve never been a ‘birder’ and I really dislike …
Egghead Mottlegills at Hound Tor
A trip to Hound Tor on Dartmoor reveals a special fruiting sensation of Egghead Mottlegills, Panaeolus semiovatus, or at least that’s what I think they are. I’d probably need to destroy …
The Darkling Thrush
There’s a Song Thrush singing high above. It’s getting dark and I can just glimpse it through the branches. It’s hard to …
Purple mushrooms on Dartmoor
I’m on an organised fungus foray on Dartmoor with the Devon Fungus Group and, yes, we are all exactly like you would …
Oakbug Milkcaps
Oak trees are our most common native tree. They host hundreds of species of insects because they’ve had the time to develop …
I highly recommend stroking a wild mushroom
I’m looking for a fungus. It’s not just any fungus, it’s a parasitic fungus which grows on another fungus. I’ve seen it …
Hound Tor sunset
I love Hound Tor on Dartmoor. I’m walking to the top from the car park. It’s not far: At the top I …
Bullfinch bookends and Tunnicliffe’s Brooke Bond Bird Portraits
Bullfinches are exceptionally beautiful. They are also elusive. It’s a pleasure when I see a pair at Yarner Woods on Dartmoor: I’ve …
Roe Deer on Dartmoor
Stumbling through the undergrowth on Trendlebere Down, part of East Dartmoor National Nature Reserve, I find a complete Roe Deer skeleton. It’s …
The wild Daffodils of Dunsford Wood
Today was a wonderful day for walking on Dartmoor. On the very far east of Dartmoor is the valley of the River …
Violet Webcap
There are only a few fungi which are bright purple and this is one of them, the Violet Webcap, Cortinarius violaceus: It’s …
The Tree: An afternoon on Dartmoor and a wild idea
Dartmoor is a wonderful upland area of Devon. It is based on granite rocks which frequently outcrop on high tors. I’m having …