Earlier in the month, while the weather was still autumnal Alex Worsley from The Bumblebee Conservation Trust kindly came to visit us and brought all his knowledge and enthusiasm for bees. Our farm is in the middle of a coastal patch around Bideford Bay where Alex and the Trust are working hard to encourage and manage habitats for all bees, but especially the last remaining populations of the brown-banded carder bee and the moss carder bee.
As well as flowers for nectar different bee species need soft walls or cliffs to borrow in, tussocky grass for nesting, ponds, and they love hedges for navigation. In the last 80 years we have lost 97% of our the wildflower habitat and bees are under threat from pesticides and climate breakdown. Today eight of our twenty-five bumblebee species are endangered, so we were delighted to see what we could do at the farm to help them.
As Alex and I walked over the farm land he identified a gorgeous common carder bee on the last of the summer purple dead nettle plants and told me he had seen a very rare black-headed minor bee earlier in the year burrowing in the ground above our kiln by the beach. As well as bees Alex brought out all the fauna and flora, we saw several kestrels, a huge great spotted woodpecker, a dark bush cricket, speckled wood butterfly, a possible hobby (it looked like a kestrel, but was not a kestrel), and a parrot wax cup fungi. He also identified knapweed, red clover, birds foot trefoil, red fescue grass all great coastal plants in our Cliff Field and speedwell, field woundwort, scarlet pimpernel, corn spurrey all very exciting field margin plants in Eleven Acres…… We also saw a rat, but lets forget about that one!
We both agreed how great it was having earwigs in our orchard (more about that in Dave Goulson’s excellent book – The Garden Jungle) and apple trees being one of the first to blossom are good news for the early rising spring bees. We also talked about creating a coastal wildflower meadow in Cliff Field and rotational grazing. Thank you Alex, and please come back in the spring/summer to see how we are getting on.
Later in the month during a visit to Bucksmills a very pretty village 15 mins drive to the west of Greencliff, family and I saw a huge bird being mobbed by crows high in the sky ~(it looked too big for a buzzard). The next day there was excited chatter on Twitter of how one of the juvenile white tailed eagles had been over to Devon all the way from the Isle of White (where they have been reintroduced after 240 years of absence) and one had been spotted by the ranger on Lundy island…. I have been known to get a bit carried away with my bird identification, but it could well have been this juvenile. Its very exciting to think they are around and could visit at any time!
Disaster hit our Greencliff beach on 26th October when a container containing (clean) adult nappies was wreaked onto the beach at Bucksmills. A big clean up operation is still underway as various parties including #2minutebeachclean, the AONB and council, plus members of the public collect up the plastic pollution. It has been dispersed and broken up by the large swell all along the Bideford Bay coastline as far as Woolacombe and is a horror to pick up as the nappies disintegrate and are saturated with seawater. A big thank you to everyone who have given time to help remove the waste. And reminder to take a bag to the beach and do a quick beach clean every time you go!
Another sad arrival on the beach was a porpoise, I let the Cetacean Stranding Investigation team know 🙁
On a happier note our friends the cows have the best sunset view:
Another very interesting blog, your photos are lovely. I hope you are going to be able to persuade me that earwigs are great too.
Loving your blog Sue. Very interesting and informative too. Also love the pictures.
Thank you Joanne, so delighted you enjoy it xxx
They only breed once a year and eat all the aphids, what’s not to like?
Lovely to hear about life on the farm & fantastic that you can help the bees. Sounds like you are living the Devon Dream albeit for those unexpected nappies!
Sue
Loved the blog with all the information and fantastic photos. We think it was the sea eagle, a young one as it was not fully fledged. Are you thinking of beehives? Great honey to come!
Jimmy and Heather
Lovely story! Many small changes wil make a large one!
And it gives a lot of satisfaction doing good for insects.
Thank you 🙂
Wonderful to read your latest blog update. What an amazing adventure your project is and what a fabulous difference you’re making.
Very good post! We will be linking to this particularly great article on our website. Keep up the great writing. Malissia Eddy Shaughnessy