Bantham

At Bantham last weekend, admiring the large clumps of kidney vetch, sheep’s bit, thrift and sea campions seemingly growing out of bare rock on the cliffs. The most exciting find was a somewhat sorry looking specimen of the Nationally Scarce balm-leaved figwort. Annoyingly, I failed to get a decent photo of the flowers but you can…

Slapton

We went to Slapton to see the humpback whale that has been visiting Start Bay since the end of February. We didn’t see the whale – apparently it comes into the bay with the incoming tide – but we did see a harbour porpoise and reed buntings. There were swans, grebes and a lot of…

Elsewhere in April

Elsewhere in the past couple of weeks, some interesting tiny coastal plants under the viaduct in Bittaford: common scurvygrass (heart-shaped leaves, distinctive spherical seed pods; once used by sailors to prevent scurvy) and Danish scurvygrass (ivy-shaped leaves) come inland where roads are salted. My phone wasn’t quite up to photography on this miniature scale. Thale cress was growing in…