Spring Blues
Emsworthy Mire gets its name from its boggy bottom! An expanse of wet woodland and marshy ground fed by the Becka Brook which runs through the reserve.
The nature reserve sits below Saddle Tor between Widecombe-in-the-Moor and Haytor. A gently sloping valley leads you down between ancient dry-stone walls to the ruins of a moorland farm, abandoned since the 1870s.
Each spring the nature reserve becomes a stunning blaze of violet as several of its fields are covered in bluebells.
I know that this location has been photographed a million times, but as Miserable May drew to a close, we were promised a rare morning of blue skies. I knew that I had missed the bluebells for this year, but thought that there may be a chance that some may still be lingering on Dartmoor. So off I set – across the border into Devon.
Surprisingly the bluebells had yet to be fully enticed from their grassy bed by the warmth of the morning sun, but the sparse carpet was still very pretty, and the air was filled with the babble of the brook, and the occasional call of a cuckoo, oh – and some very gobby sheep!
Spring Blues
Emsworthy Mire gets its name from its boggy bottom! An expanse of wet woodland and marshy ground fed by the Becka Brook which runs through the reserve.
The nature reserve sits below Saddle Tor between Widecombe-in-the-Moor and Haytor. A gently sloping valley leads you down between ancient dry-stone walls to the ruins of a moorland farm, abandoned since the 1870s.
Each spring the nature reserve becomes a stunning blaze of violet as several of its fields are covered in bluebells.
I know that this location has been photographed a million times, but as Miserable May drew to a close, we were promised a rare morning of blue skies. I knew that I had missed the bluebells for this year, but thought that there may be a chance that some may still be lingering on Dartmoor. So off I set – across the border into Devon.
Surprisingly the bluebells had yet to be fully enticed from their grassy bed by the warmth of the morning sun, but the sparse carpet was still very pretty, and the air was filled with the babble of the brook, and the occasional call of a cuckoo, oh – and some very gobby sheep!