David presented to a packed full house on Wednesday 26th March.  His presentation provided an incredible glimpse into the wild life that one can see when enjoying the Pebblebed heaths, rivers or new Nature reserve. 

My big takeaway is that there is an amazing variety of wildlife to be seen - but one has to observe - and that’s the difficult part!

He started by looking at the water coming in and out of the nature reserve by the Elizabeth bridge – varying from low tides to high spring tide flooding.  The volume of water moving in and out of the reserve is incredible and as David highlighted “the wildlife had no idea that this was about to happen”.  Clearly the channels are deepening and widening, while the nature reserve is receiving large amount of salt water.  This means that the wildlife is changing and adapting.

David shared stories and insights about animal behaviour – explaining, for example, why observing the Ospreys is probably easier in the autumn than the spring (because they are at the start of their winter migration as opposed to almost at the end of their spring migration).

His stories of the beavers and their kits were delightful – particularly when talking about the five kits one year being fed by a mother with just four teats … one ending up as the runt of the litter and then continuing to be fed the following year. Incredible stories supported by incredible pictures.

All pictures reproduced with permission from David R. White.

Erosion of the banks leading up to Elizabeth bridge	Crow with a mouthful of fish!	Cormorant grappling with a large eel	Beaver with two kits – large and very small
Oh no! A dog chasing a swan across the Nature reserve	Two symmetrical common blue butterflies on a seed-head	Poisonous noble false widow spider – resident of East Budleigh	Male beautiful demoiselle displaying– our largest damselfly

The fish stock in the river and nature reserve clearly supports a growing population of birdlife. I for one had no idea that crows would feed so voraciously on small fish, or that the Curlews & gulls take crabs, or that the kingfisher takes shrimps. I was also surprised to hear that eels are thriving in the river – witnessed by a cormorant catching and swallowing an eel that must have been 2 or 3 feet long!

Another surprise was to hear that our area is one of the best places to view butterflies. David shared some of the butterflies that are already beginning to be observed across the heaths.  So do keep a keen eye out for them - and please do share what you see with us on Facebook or by emailing us.

David also talked a little about the growth in visitors to the nature reserve.  While nature is there for all to see, he drew gasps of astonishment from the audience when he showed a couple of pictures of dogs chasing a swan – which he observed just last week.  As David mentioned, while this did no specific harm last week, we are entering the breeding season and there will be ground-breeding birds, cygnets and many other young all around the reserve – so please do keep your dogs on leads and don’t let them run loose.  

David’s talk was of wildlife that he has observed in our valley - wildlife that we all have the opportunity to see. But it requires great patience and observation to spot those Otters in the bushes, or those butterflies in the brush. As an example of patience, David showed an incredible picture of two butterflies facing each other on a single flower stem – and mentioned it had taken over an hour watching them to get that perfect picture. Now THAT is professionalism!

It was very sad to have to stop the presentation after 75 minutes – one story we did miss is about the most poisonous UK spider that happens to live in East Budleigh – so do watch out !

[Talk report written by Chris Boorman]