Fingle Bridge

This beautiful old bridge over the river Teign is a good place to visit, it is not far from the pretty village of Drewsteignton. There are lovely walks in both directions along the river banks and a great pub beside the bridge for a drink and meal when you have finished. In my picture there is a fly fishing lesson going on on the other side of the bridge.

LAMBS ON THE MOOR

Dartmoor is now springing with newborn lambs, a real joy to see. But also a worry as they often dash across the roads to get to mum on the other side and love to sleep on or right beside them with tiny hooves protruding onto the tarmac! Which means you have to take extra care especially at night when they just look like lumps of granite!

FERNWORTHY RESERVOIR

This is a lovely place to take a picnic and enjoy the beautiful views over the reservoir to the moors beyond. There is a good footpath which goes right around the reservoir and you can often see Canada geese, Grebes & various ducks. At the moment there are lots of Swallows swooping low over the water catching insects & dipping in for a drink. It is also a favoured place for fishing.

PEARL-BORDERED FRITILLARY

So far it has been a very good year for butterflies & at the moment there are a lot of beautiful bright Pearl-bordered Fritillaries flying about on the heathland especially below Castle Drogo where there are also lots of Violets in flower; the food plant for their larva.

FIRST CUCKOO!

I heard my forst Cuckoo of the year yesterday evening, here in Chagford somewhere near our garden. It is always a thrill & especially so now they are getting so scarce.

The picture is of Delamore which is in Cornwood near Ivybridge in Devon. A beautiful place which is open to the public during the month of May when it holds its annual exhibition of paintings & sculptures.

A CLOSER LOOK AT THE MOON

Here is a closer look at my moon photo. It is so beautiful I am working on some ideas of incorporating it ino one of my paintings, probably with Hares. I will blog it when it is done!

WONDERFUL MOON

Yesterday evening I spotted the moon as it came up through the trees on the hill oposite our house, it looked so fantastic glowing yellowy-orange with a tracery of the trees infont of it, I managed to get quite a nice photo of it with my little Lumix camera which is also brilliant for photographing butterflies

OIL BEETLES

Now is the time to watch out for Oil Beetles, especially as they like to be on footpaths & can easily get underfoot! I have spotted several of these amazing looking beetles along the riverside path in the woodland before Dogmarsh bridge, Chagford. Here is a photo taken on the 16th of April. This one is a Violet Oil Beetle, there are several kinds & a good website to see these is

www.buglife.org.uk

APRIL FLOWERS

I mentioned painting the beautiful Early Purple Orchids in my previous blog and here is one of my watercolours of these together with Bluebells and an Orange-tip Butterfly, a Hover-fly plus an egg shell I found at that time, probably a Sparrows.

EARLY PURPLE ORCHID

It is lovely to see some Early Purple Orchids coming into flower. I remember when I first came to live in Devon in 1969 and discovered these beautiful wildflowers growing in the Devon hedgebanks and fields, I could not wait to paint them and try and capture their beautiful delicately spotted flowers and beautiful spotted leaves in watercolour.

ANOTHER FOUR BUTTERFLIES

Here are four more butterflies photographed on our walk near Honeychurch on Sunday.

A Comma, Speckled Wood, female Orange-tip and a very tatty Painted Lady which I think must have overwintered here. The only other butterfly of which I saw several, but was not able to get a picture of was the beautiful bright yellow Brimstone butterfly

MORE BUTTERFLIES

Here are some more of the butterflies I spotted yesterday, Sunday the 10th of April on a walk from the sweet little village of Honeychurch near Sampford Courtenay.

A Small Tortoiseshell, Peacock, Male Orange Tip & a Red Admiral.

HOLLY BLUE BUTTERFLY

This extra warm weather has brought out an abundance of Butterflies & recently I have seen 9 different species. These included a battered looking Painted Lady a Red Admiral, Peacock, Comma, Yellow Brimstone, Orange Tip, Speckled Wood & Small Tortoiseshell.

Here is a beautiful little Holly Blue visiting the Ivy in my garden.

GREEN TIGER BEETLES

This wonderful spell of hot weather has brought out the Green Tiger Beetles (cicindela campestris) in abundance. They are all over the Hunters path below Castle Drogo & well worth looking out for; their brilliant metalic green is almost jewel like. I managed to get this picture at a distance as they are quite wary.

DEVON VIOLETS

There are masses of beautiful wild Devon Violets out at the moment, great news for Fritillary Butterflies. I took this picture on the hunters path below Castle Drogo.

THE SWALLOWS ARE BACK!

I am so excited, I have just seen my forst Swallows of the year! A pair that nest near Eastern Court each year & defy the traffic when they sweep low along the road in search of insects. It is just amazing how they manage to stay together & fly back to Chagford at nearly the same day each year.

Here is one of my watercolours of a pair of Swallows

Stoke Gabriel

Today I had to take a painting down to some friends in Goodrington so on our way home we stopped off to have a walk & explore the pretty village of Stoke Gabriel which sits beside a creek on the river Dart. The bluebells were coming out in the woodland running along beside the river & it was nice to see so many bushes of Butchers Broom. There is an ancient & well propped up Yew tree beside the church dating back to 1066!

The view shows a lovely Cherry tree in blossom with the Church in the distance.

A Host of Golden Daffodils

Here is another picture taken on a walk through Dunsford Woods where the daffodils are at their best right now.

The air is scented not with the daffs but with wild garlic! There are also many beautiful Wood Anenomies dotted about.