First Month

A whole four weeks of our new life. First impressions: the weather is surprisingly (?!) a bit damp; you can hear the sea from the garden; we have black clock beetles in the bathroom and Ollie dog is afraid of cows.

The views are totally amazing, swaths of green and blue from Hartland Point to Croyde Bay to the north. With Lundy Island on the horizon. We are walking the land getting our bearings noting the wildlife and harvesting asparagus from the vegetable patch (potatoes to follow when they flower….. apparently).

Our wildlife

I think I have spotted a new species of something almost everyday! Well, certainly for the first two weeks, I have come across birds, (seagull, wagtail, robin, pigeon, crow, blackbird, goldfinch, collared dove, buzzard, bluetit, in and around the garden), dragonfly, a rat, rabbits, grasshopper, leaf cutter bees, lots of spiders in my house, butterflies, mole mounds, big toadstools, two separate days of flying ants, a family of partridges, pheasant and a possible sighting of a polecat!! The sea shore has a whole host of honestly beautiful seaweeds, and so many rock pools at low tide sitting in the wave cut platform there are limpets, sea amenome, small and larger crabs, sea shells and spider crabs . I’m still to find any frogs, stag beetles, snakes or hedgehogs ….. fingers crossed!

So far I’ve stumbled across four birds nests in and around the farmhouse and barns. We have noisy sparrows in the courtyard under the eaves and a second nest next to the guttering at the gable end of the farmhouse. The parents work soooo hard feeding their brood. The cutest wren’s nest is in the shower block, the two babies I saw squeaking out of the nest were so small, and the next day they fledged into the hedge, still squeaking. The forth nest is on top of one of the barns and I think they were sparrows too, but further away for IDing (must find the binoculars). There are many swallows swooping but I’ve not found their nests, unless they have fledged already as there are quite a few old swallow nests on the underside of the exposed wooden roof panels in the garage. There are fabulous looking stonechats who sit on top of the brambles on the coastal path and ‘chink’ at you as you walk past.

We spotted a kestrel having a tussle with a magpie at the weekend on the green field by the cliff, I think the kestrel won, as the magpie flew off which was good going as the magpie looked bigger and stronger.

We love the many different butterflies flitting in the sunshine including peacock, meadow brown, red admiral and cabbage whites, yesterday I saw a very small gorgeous common blue, but he was too quick for my camera. The plan is to plant a whole field of bee/butterfly friendly weeds and flowers, I keep checking the nettles for caterpillars!

Good news: we have bats! Bad news: they are very very expensive creatures if you are doing any building work which may effect them. We have some great ecologists helping us do the right thing for the bats, and we’d be very keen on increasing our bat variety and numbers (I’d love to have a crevassey tower built where they can roost and have a maternity den, but that will probably have to wait until next year). We think they are pipistrelles, but will keep you posted.