Promoting & Enhancing The Natural Beauty of the Sid Valley
July is the month where, if you walk through a meadow, you hope to see insects pinging left and right to get out of your way. In the daytime these are most likely to be grasshoppers, but we have plenty of crickets and bush-cricketsRead More
Leave a comment As we come to the end of June, our hedgerows and meadows are filling with yellow and white froth as members of the bedstraw family come into flower. Bedstraws are members of the Rubiaceae family, a name which translates as red plants because theRead More
Leave a comment Wildflower meadows are all the rage for many reasons: they can be a bright and cheerful spectacle when they are at their flowering peak in May and June, they produce nutritious winter food for livestock, but most importantly from my perspective, they are theRead More
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We have many fine trees around our town, one of the things that makes Sidmouth a pleasant place for humans to live, but we are not alone in enjoying our treescape. If you go for a walk around many areas of the town atRead More
Leave a comment If you are out and about as summer progresses you might notice the tops of tall grasses and other plants such as nettles wrapped into a ball by spider web. This will probably be the nest of one of our remarkable spiders the NurseryRead More
Leave a comment It may surprise people to learn that many of the small airfields across the country are excellent nature reserves, as are some of the military training grounds. The key is that many of these sites are left alone largely, people are kept out andRead More
Leave a comment If you are a bumblebee living near the beach and raising this year’s brood you will be glad that the purple trumpets of the tree mallows are open with their rich supply of nectar and pollen. The area of the beach by the BelmontRead More
Leave a comment They can be seen all year round, but May is when flowers of Red Campion really brighten up the local hedgerows, but we also have five close relatives living here in Sidmouth, we have: White Campion, Sea Campion, Bladder Campion, Ragged Robin and NottinghamRead More
Leave a comment As I walked into our communal garden the other day I was startled by a large butterfly flying up from the tub of pansies by the door. I stood still and waited as it fluttered about and then settled again to feed. Then IRead More
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