A Week in Somerset - Pastures Old

A week down in Somerset wouldn't be the same without visiting Ham Wall (twice) and Shapwick Heath, plus a more touristic jaunt to Cheddar Gorge.

So some highlights from Ham Wall:

Another Grass Snake,

A Wren having a dust bath, never seen a Wren do that before.

A Bittern in a distant (and somewhat blurry!) fly by.

Female Blackcap,

a nice if somewhat hot walk.

There is a Water Rail hidden in there, honest!

Great Crested Grebe,

Great White Egret

and a Little Grebe.

Shapwick was very quiet, as it was hot and the hides were still closed, we sat on a bench for a while having a coffee, watching the activity on and around the lagoon by the tower hide.

First up was a bit of Royal Navy action, I'm guessing from RNAS Yeovilton, a Westland Lynx, this was followed a bit later by a Navy Merlin. Sadly not of the feathered variety 😏

On the left hand side of the water an Egret roost developed, with a Grey Heron being the King of the Castle and a Cormorant being left out on a limb.

It was nice to see a Great Crested Grebe still on a nest, this must be a second brood as I would have expected to see some cute Grebe humbugs at least.

Finally on the walk back after spotting a Hobby perched on a distant bare tree, this Jay posed for a moment.

So what about Cheddar Gorge? The main purpose of the visit was to see if there were on signs of Water Vole in the ponds, we have seen them before but the last time was in 2012, so we don't know if they are still there. No sign of them this time, but we did pick a new bird for the trip, a Grey Wagtail:

We also guess the Peregrines no longer nest in the Gorge, just some goats

and people.

We took a big step in Cheddar, we actually bought a coffee and sat outside on a terrace enjoying the view! Then we had the audacity to buy an ice cream no less! We drove out of Cheddar up the gorge and just took random turns, finding another spot to pull in and have another coffee (not bought!) in the Mendips. We parked adjacent Ubley Warren NR, a Somerset Wildlife Trust reserve, there was quite a bit of distant birding activity

So that's it apart from a few more pics from the garden of our cottage: