In the Shadow of Mankind – Page 6

Hermanus in Walker Bay, east of Cape town

Hermanaus

4_ll_david_rogers_dsc_9573-h4_ll_david_rogers_dr2

Hermanus is one of the worlds best places to watch whales from the land, and therefore is well worth some time if you are visiting the Cape of South Africa.

Sitting on the beach watching the whales play in the bay is an experience that long stays in the memory. Generally the whales (in this instance Souhtern right whales) are present from June to December, though on occasion they do appear as early as April. However, the whales are not the only thing to enjoy in Hermanus.

We currently have one area for people to stay in Hermanus though it is rather special.

With a variety of flowers and birds found within the reserve and in the surrounding area, and whales and sharks viewable from the coast, this stay can be nature packed.

You can also simply spend time on the reserve and enjoy the beach.

A variety of activities including kayaking, biking, quad biking and shark cage diving (all sorts of marine wildlife can be seen on these trips) can also be undertaken. Boating and kayaking is also available

Beyond the border of the reserve, there are caves to explore and more beaches to visit among many activities.

There are two places to stay within the reserve, Mosaic lagoon house consisting of a family suite and a suite for a couple, and the Perivola house a 4 bedroom place for the sole use of one group at a time.

Forest of Dean

Forest of Dean - Boar Watching

The Forest of Dean is perhaps one of the biggest and healthiest woodlands within the UK.

Part of this is down to its significant population of wild boar.

Before humans hunted wild boar to extinction, they were a highly important part of our ecosystem, and generally woodlands in the UK show their absence.

What do I mean? One of the benefits of wild boar is that their rooting behavior. While humans often do not like this, as this rooting behavior can destroy gardens or picturesque roundabouts, areas that have had this treatment are perfect for trees to germinate and start to grow.

Indeed we were astounded walking around the forest to see so many small copses of new tree nurseries. In this sense wild boar fulfill a similar niche of being ecosystem engineers as beavers in rivers.

Apart from the boar, there is a healthy population of deer. Roe deer exist here naturally. Fallow deer were introduced by the Normans and this is the most common species to see. In recent years Muntjac deer have also recently become established and are fascinating. There are a small number of red deer that still exist though seeing these is a lucky day.

Wild boar are surprisingly large animals and we have had a couple of encounters with them on our visits.

The best way to spot them is by driving some of the back roads in the early evening.

I have once spotted a family from the car, and this year two boar ran past while we were walking a forest path.

Both were in a similar location. I will put together a page of information that will be sent with any booking made from the accommodation further down the page, or I can provide just this information for £10 if you have found a place to stay elsewhere.

View of the forest

River Wye running through

Boar track among dog tracks

Dung beetle at work

Droppings - Pine marten?

More rooting behavior signs

The Forest of Dean is a truly wild woodland. While it is scattered with villages and towns, this is the only place I have seen beetles actually behaving as dung beetles, in the UK.

The government has also started a process of translocating pine martens to the area, and while the animal is shy, signs of its presence will increase over the next few years. If the translocation is successful, then it will also slowly remove the grey squirrels from this wood, which apart from being good for the health of the trees, will allow red squirrels to recolonize.

Visiting a place like this allows you to hunt for signs of the animals such as tracks, as well as spotting the actual animal itself.

Boar are highly intelligent, and fascinating to see. Care should be taken as they can be dangerous, particularly when they have young.

Places to stay

Below is a variety of lodgings which are close to wild parts of the forest. There is also a link to search all accommodation available within the forest of dean. Any bookings support the work of the site. The places we have listed are close to where we have had our sightings, however boar are found throughout the forest so do not feel restricted to just the places we listed.

Campsites will be listed below the hotels.

[booking_product_helper shortname=”forest of dean”]

Campsites coming soon

to to

Add your own marker

Marker Title
Marker Address or GPS Location	Or right-click on the map and drag to add a marker
Marker Description
Image
Marker Category
Date
Time
	Please tick this box to prove you are human
	Adding...

Cardigan bay

Cardigan Bay

One of the most reliable and easy places to see wild mammals in the UK is Cardigan Bay. This bay in Wales has a permanent population of dolphins that live there all year round.

Estimates of the population varies from about 250-300.

While they can be seen at any time all along the Cardigan Bay coast, the most easy, and from our experience the most reliable, place to see dolphins is in New Quay harbour. This is relatively central within Cardigan Bay.

With a number of places to stay locally, both in terms of camping and hotels it is easy to find accommodation that will fit any budget (find links below).

This is perhaps one of the easiest activities to undertake with small children. Dolphins tend to turn up pretty reliably around New Quay each evening. Therefore there is little waiting for the animals (they are either there or not). They are also interesting animals to watch as they are highly intelligent.

When we are staying in the area we usually go in for sausage and chips and watch the dolphins while we eat.

There is a variety of places to stay in the area. There are a few campsites within New Quay, which range from holiday parks to a farmer who allows camping during the summer.

There are other towns nearby with hotels and B&B but New Quay is small . Anywhere along the coast you are likely to see dolphins though due to a fish processing plant, they are regularly around New Quay.

Below is a link to search the whole of Ceredigion county. Under this is links to hotels around the county. To the right is links for lodgings within New Quay – including campsites (coming soon) and holiday houses for rent.

Aberaeron is a town further up the coast. Dolphins are regularly seen here and it is one of the best places to watch for dolphins.

There is hotel Pewig within Newquay. You can find this under the beneath booking.com link

to to

Ceredigion County

New Quay

[booking_product_helper shortname=”cardigan bay”]

Devon river otter – beavers

River Otter in Devon - Beavers

Beavers can be seen once again, living wild in the UK. This is fantastic news for the cleanliness of our rivers. Despite rumours spread about their impacts on fish the beavers return is fantastic for the health of the river. Furthermore, beaver dams often make great nursaries for fish fry.

The UK is missing much of its wildlife, that once lived here. Humans have gradually eliminated much of the mammals that we once shared this country with. In particular, in England we have lost almost all large wilderness ecosystems, which makes it hard to reintroduce mammals we pushed to local extinction.

However, beavers are an exception. Being water mammals, they live in rivers – places that we cant grow crops anyway.

People have argued that they would dam large numbers of rivers, and flood vast landscapes, making it impossible for fish to migrate up stream (bizarrely forgetting that beavers and fish have coexisted in the UK and the rest of Europe for millions of years). However in Europe, one of the most useful things that Beavers do, is reduce the height of flooding, and largely eliminate flash flooding. Indeed, a village in Wales that had been flooded for three years in a row, set aside 10 acres above the village and introduced a family of beaver, and there have been no floods since then.

Back in 2008 a family of beavers appeared on the River Otter. The government immediately said that they needed testing for diseases, but would not be allowed to return regardless of the outcome. The village complained, and eventually the beavers were given five years of living on the River Otter, during which time a study would be carried out.

Initially, there was concern we did not know the origin of these beavers. Genetic analysis showed that they were European beavers, and a health check showed them to be clear of illnesses that can afflict them.

As expected, the beavers were highly beneficial. They have thrived on the river, and now around 30 lives in the original stretch of river, there are now thought to be between 300 and 500 living wild in Devon and this number is only increasing. They have increased biodiversity, slowed river flow and improved water quality. Recently they were given the right to remain permanently by the British government. Given the space, beavers will likely return to all parts of the UK in the next few decades.

Beavers are wonderful animals to watch. As environmental engineers they change the river and surrounding area, and these changes are often highly beneficial for other animals. In Europe, beaver pools are often very good for fish nurseries, as well as being highly popular for both water voles and otters.

The beavers on the River Otter are no different. I recently spent some time with my family on this river watching the beavers.

As with any wildlife trip, I had done extensive research so knew roughly where to look. However we found it surprisingly easy to find them.

Beavers make a fantastic introduction to wildlife watching for small children. This is because they are reasonably predictable, most active in the early morning and early evening.

Also, given their security of being safe in the water you can sit or stand on one bank and watch them on the opposite bank, and they will happily get on with their own lives.

My children are six and eight and in a weekend we saw the beavers perhaps six times for a total of around an hour. Their excitement was wonderful to see

A walk along the bank of the River Otter may well lead to a sighting. However if you are in the right place, you are highly likely to see them.

Below are a series of links for you to use on your visit. These should help you find a place to stay nearby.

I will put together some brief information about where we have encountered beavers, and where we found the dams. The cost will be £10, though if you book accomodation through one of the links below it will be reduced to £5.

The area where the beavers live is covered in villages. Generally these are small so staying anywhere in the area is good. The maps hows all booking.com listed places, or indeed use the blue enclosed search link.

Beaver dam

Dam with flooded wood

Places within Ottery St Mary

This is a rural area, so hotels are not exactly where the beavers live. However, beavers have spread throughout the river otter valley, and there are now thought to be around 30. Use the above link to access rest of the hotels in the area, and the map below to see what is available

[booking_product_helper shortname=”river otter beavers”]

to to

Thursley Common – British reptile watching

Thursely and Hankley Common - Reptile watching

Thursley common is one of the most important wildlife reserves in the UK.

Hosting all 6 uk reptile species, some were until recently only found on this site. Plenty of slow worms, often not included, were found during an extensive count after the recent fire.

While over the last decade sand lizards have been reintroduced to a handful of other reserves, there was a time when this was the only place they could be seen in the UK.

Reptiles were once reasonably common across southern and central parts of the UK, but unfortunately their favoured habitat of heath-land has become increasingly rare, and cut into smaller and smaller spaces by building projects.

Thursley common consists of 350 Hectares (around 1.35 square miles) of woodland, bog, grassland and heathland. which is perfect for reptiles.

Other things to look out for, are the huge variety of dragon flies, Colin the Cuckoo who returns each year and the Hoby’s a small bird similar to a falcon, which specialized in catching dragon flies.

In normal times, a wooden walkway runs through the swamps, allowing you to walk through the area and see the dragonflies up close. The wooden boards walk up, which makes this area perfect for looking for lizards (our record was 300 on a walk). Unfortunately the wooden walkway was largely destroyed, and what is left is unusable. There are plans to rebuild it but this eliminates the easiest place to see the lizards. However, with patience they should still be visible on the right sort of day.

Generally, we have found spring and autumn the easiest days to see the lizards. They like to warm up on the boardwalks, but if the weather is too warm they require less warming so can spend more time out of site.

This is a great place to look to bring small children. The many colored dragonflies can instill an interest in wildlife. Furthermore, the walkways that are still safe, (and hopefully when rebuilt) are fantastic for lizards basking in the sun. Indeed on a day with perfect weather (warm but not too sunny) we have seen more than 300 lizards.

With more fitness and a greater walk, there are also sand lizards to be seen, though these are far harder to spot.

Oddly, when we visit we are usually the only ones looking at the lizards though there are usually many birders. Other than the common lizards we have seen snakes before. The sand lizards hide well, but are certainly there.

For birders there are a number of interesting species. In the summer there are cuckoos in residence, and hobbys (a small bird of pray) who specialize in eating dragonflies, something that is also found here in abundance.

A typical view of the habitat

Walkway before the fire

Lizards bask to warm up

They can usually be seen along the edge of warm areas

They are still there in the vegatation, just harder to see

There are a series of ponds on the reserve

The boardwalks gave access to places you usually cant go

Thursley Common is a tiny surviving area that would once have been far more common in the UK, though there are positive moves that might see more areas like this.

There are clear paths around the reserve though a certain level of fitness is required. The majority of the reserve is wheelchair friendly if adventurous.

We have spent many an hour with our children and friends, looking for lizards. It is a fantastic introduction to wildlife particularly for small children as the lizards are on their level.

One does need to be careful, as if grabbed a lizard will drop its tail, however I have never seen children move quietly enough for this to happen. Scroll to the bottom to add or view the sightings map

Places to stay

There are many lovely hotels around this area, and apart from Thursley there are all sorts of other lovely walks to do. Below is a selection of nearby ones, as well as a booking.com page for viewing the rest.

Campsites will be listed below the hotels

[booking_product_helper shortname=”thursley common”]

There are lots of places to stay within a few miles, zoom out to see them all. I have also highlighted a handful around this box.

As you can see from the map, there are many other places in the area to stay. I have highlighted some of the nearest, however explore the others on offer.

Campsites coming soon

to to

February 27, 2018December 3, 2023

West African Lions

There are a small number of lions that still live in West Africa. The population is in steep decline and is now only found reliably in one protected area with small remaining populations in a few others. The last significant population is found in a transboundary protected area between Niger Benin and Burkina Faso. This consists of Arli National park in South East Burkina Faso, Pendjari National Park in Benin and Singou Reserve. This group of protected areas is collectively called the WAP complex (W-Arli-Pendjari). Continue reading “West African Lions”

February 18, 2018December 3, 2023

Cape leopards

Cape Leopards are a fascinating part of the leopard population of South Africa. It is estimated that there are as many as 1000 cape leopards living throughout the western cape. Now the western cape covers roughly 50,000 square miles so it is a rather large area, and they are spread across a few national parks. What is interesting about this group is that they are significantly smaller than any other group of leopards with females weighing around 20kg and males 35kg (generally leopards weigh between 60 and 70kg). Continue reading “Cape leopards”

February 10, 2018December 3, 2023

Transfrontier parks – allowing wildlife to exist closer to how it did before humans arrived

In Africa it is becoming increasingly common for national parks to be declared on both sides of a border. This allows the protected area to be vastly larger than either country could succeed in, on its own. This is important because many of the mammals that live in Africa need a lot of space and live at low densities. Without transfrontier parks it would be too expensive to protect a large enough area to support populations of animals such as wild dog and cheetah. In an ideal world this is a relatively simple solution, however as with everything it isn’t often that simple. With war and famine and other problems the animals could suddenly become less secure in one country than another. Continue reading “Transfrontier parks – allowing wildlife to exist closer to how it did before humans arrived”