Written by Bungy Williams Thursday, September 13, 2007 at 1:10 PM
September brings us to the end of our summer period and now we will begin the work that will take place on the Heaths this winter.
We are looking to clear scrub and a small pine plantation this winter and are also selecting areas of Colaton Raleigh Common for some swailing (Heathland Burning) to give us a mosaic of differing age structures.
Now is the time to catch the last of the purple haze of the flowering heathers.
The Nightjars are not as vocal now and are getting ready to fly off to South Africa for the winter.
We have produced a multi guide leaflet that gives a varing number of rides walks etc. These can be purchased from steph at the estate office.Mind you what i find is that as i ride up from Budleigh and do about 1 1/2 hr ride these routes are not long enough.They can be stitched together and form a basis for those that don't know the commons well.My advice would be use the Castle c/p to start and use the castle as a location point as you ride the area.4firs x c/p has now got the br/wy going through Blackhill Quarry opened again.So you can do some linking up on Bicton common to make even longer routes .Most people i have spoke to about the commons is how far and how free it is to cycle it.They said they would not like signs or route building .Hope thats ansewered your qurie DO NOT GET US A BAD NAME BY RIDING THE MONUMENT
This blog is very interesting. Hope you will continue to describe management actions on the commons
Thank you for posting this comment you must be the first to add comments we have a lot going on over the next few months and i hope to up date on some exciting proposals.
Thank you for your kind comments.The Devon Red Cows come every summer to graze the wet mire system that you saw them in.At the Eastern end we have a colony of the rare Southern Dameselfly.We are hopping that the cowes will open up the wet mires further up the valley so it can migrate further up and incresing its numbers. We have only just set up as a trust and at prsant only use 2 volunteers one on the Otter Estuary and one an Ex R.S.P.B.warden who helps with the cows and scrub. We are looking into the future to set up the friends of Woodbury Common but we have to get our act together.
Hello Have just retired and moved to Budleigh, so can spend more time wandering on the Commons and learning stuff - I'm pretty ignorant but enjoy photography and publishing. See my Budleigh blog. I've used a news item from the DCE website at http://exmouthroadies.blogspot.com/2009/03/call-to-protect-east-devon-conservation.html - hope that's ok. Any chance of using pics of butterflies, nightjars, Dartford warblers etc? Michael
Hi as you can see I am not good at looking at the blog.We do have a lot of photo's.Some are mine others belong to the Estate or to photographers employed by the Estate.I am sure we can help you. We are now starting to move into the best time of the year to start recording stuff on the commons. If its flora and fauna you are after the commons are vast and some of our rare stuff is small and the areas they inhabit are large and not easy to access.Once you know the area's to look then things get exciting.
East Devon Pebblebed Heaths Conservation Trust, c/o Rolle Estate Office, Bicton Arena, East Budleigh, Budleigh Salterton, Devon, EX9 7BL Tel: +44 (0)1395 443881 Email: mail@pebblebedheaths.org.uk