Boots on for birding

SIMONE STANBROOK-BYRNE finds a selection of places to wander where we can also enjoy birds and other wildlife

- SIMONE STANBROOK-BYRNE

The dawn chorus. The sky is barely lightening, the day just beginning to point towards morning when it starts, growing from a few tentative voices. It would take a sad dark soul indeed not to be moved by this aural manifestation of spring, for it is during spring, when birds are establishing territory and mates, that the dawn chorus is at its most choral.

Once they’ve woken us, the birds get on with the daily business of feeding, flirting and raising young. Now is the time to get out there and see what’s going on and Somerset is very well served for sites to watch birds. Here are a few which can also be incorporated into a good walk, as any stroll is always enhanced by engagement with nature.

We hear much about declining species; an appreciation of what’s out there brings an awareness, which encourages conservation.

1. WIMBLEBALL RESERVOIR, EXMOOR

Back in the 1970s the landscape of an Exmoor valley changed forever. To supply areas of Somerset and Devon with water a vast reservoir was created. Fields, trees and hedgerows disappeared, along with some buildings. One of these was Steart Cottage, an elegant house with arched windows and spiral staircase – but no indoor loo! Its occupants had moved away, some of its feature windows and flagstones had been relocated and only spirits and spiders remained to witness its drowning.

A mighty dam was constructed across the River Haddeo. The water rose. Deeper and wider the valley flooded until the surface of the water covered more than 370 acres. Wimbleball Reservoir was born.