On the Somerset Levels - July 2020

Where great canals cut across the flatlands and a national nature reserve abuts an RSPB one.

Photographs from the Shapwick Heath National Nature Reserve and RSPB's Ham Wall on a day of sunshine and heavy rain. A day when small and colourful snails left the grass to rashly cross the path and when many mother swans showed off their young families. 

The great Glastonbury Canal

One of the colourful snails of the fenlands

Canada geese

Young mute swan

Sibling swans

A young coot

A successful pair of mute swan parents

This mother or father seems to be a single parent but is exceptionally efficient at keeping their brood in line.

A spectacular great white egret - a species that has been breeding in the UK only since 2012 

Great crested grebe on the nest - maybe time for a second brood.

Red admiral on blackberry blossom.

The Beautiful Bugs of Mid-Summer

Butterflies are the sentinels of summer - markers of sunshine and warmth.

Peacock butterfly shining in the late afternoon light.

Silver-washed fritillary - a beautiful big orange butterfly - with grey 'washed' underwings.

The red admiral.

Bumble bee on pincushion flower 

Red admiral again/

Common solider beetles enjoying a party on a platform of hog weed flowers.

The eggs of a butterfly - a couple have hatched. The butterfly is the small white or cabbage white and the food plant is my cabbages! The patch of eggs is about 4mm across.

And here they are just hatched and hungry.

Small white (adult)

Another peacock.

And another...

Southstoke in the sun

A little to the south of Bath sits the pretty village of  South Stoke. 

It consists of a tumble of buildings on a hillside facing south, including many that are listed for protection.The buildings are mainly built of local cream-coloured limestone, which shines in the sunshine and, at the village centre, are an ancient pub, an old church, and a strong sense of community.

The Somerset Coal Canal used to run near by. Traces of it can be found in the adjacent woods and fields. 

During the lock-down, the pub, the Pack Horse – a community-run project – set itself up to provide a range of basic groceries to the local community (and some drinks) – handing them out on a trestle table outside the main door to help maintain social distancing. 

Elsewhere, in an old vault, a help-yourself village shop was established providing things like flour, which was very hard to find elsewhere.

Anyway, here are a few images of the village and the countryside around it in mid-summer.

The Priory - a touch of Gothic Tudor in the centre of the village.

A view along one of the streets.

A pretty gate-house (also with a touch of Gothic) - The Lodge (somewhere behind lurks a major manor).

The village shop (temporary)

Another view of The Rectory.

Here is the Packhorse. 

And some hollyhocks.

Wonderful adjacent countryside.

Another view of the the shop.

Door panel - The Priory

View toward the old barn.

St James the Great

And some dates:

The Priory was built around 1860

St James the Great dates back to the 14th century

The Pack Horse - largely rebuilt 1674 and became a pub in the mid 1800s.

Chatting about International Treaties and Whaling.

Sometimes I receive invitations for interviews and, increasingly, they have been for online blogs.

HERE is a link to one that I just did which focused on the Convention for the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals - whose conference of parties I attended in February - and the International Whaling Commission. 

The host, Chris Parsons and I also discuss the current whaling situation towards the end of the piece - which is about thirty minutes long. 

Brown's Folly

To the east of the city of Bath on the far side of the deep Avon Rivervalley lies a woody plateau. Once an area of intense stone mining activity the rocky landscape is pitted with strange dips and bat-blessed caves. (Many of the UK's 18 bat species are found here.)

The view from the plateau is along the river taking in the eastern-edge of the city and, on the opposite side of the valley, sits the University of Bath mainly hidden in another woodland.

The view towards Bath city.

This area of ancient woodland is know after the tower that stands high on the plateau known as Brown's Folly.

Brown's Folly

One of many caves

The Silver-washed fritillary - a large orange butterfly species of mid-summer, which is recovering after a major decline in the last century.

Bumble bee on field scabious