Devon Life walks writer Simone Stanbrook-Byrne uses all of her senses to celebrate the wonders of the natural world that are there to be enjoyed as we step out on a Devon countryside stroll.
Walking for its own sake is a joy, but it’s all too easy to overlook the magic of the ordinary, the everyday feasts for our senses – which in themselves are pretty magical. Looking out for wonders makes a country walk even more special, so it’s a good idea, just occasionally, to deny yourself that early morning doze and start early to catch…
...the sunrise, that moment when morning nudges the eastern sky awake, flooding the firmament with colour. At this point, the sun’s rays have further to travel through the Earth’s atmosphere, scattering blue light and making the oranges and reds more visible, but we don’t need to know the science to revel in the glory of a summer dawn. Find a hilltop, watch the western-reaching shadows shorten as the sun rises and the day, and our walk, begins.
Summer hedgerows are full of abundance. Slow down and absorb their resplendence. Hooper’s Rule suggests that the number of woody species found in every 30 metres of old hedge is a rough indicator of the hedge’s age in centuries. Some of Devon’s traditional hedgebanks, where they’ve been properly cared for, are rich with species, entwined together by wild honeysuckle that wafts its heady fragrance over us as we walk. Look for…
...wild strawberries, those tiny red gems that stud the hedgebanks and taste quite different to anything cultivated. Beside them, bramble flowers flourish and…
...a huge bee investigates, doing her job to help ensure a future crop of blackberries. Technically, bees are aerodynamically impossible, but this one hasn’t heard that theory and bumbles busily from flower to flower, her striped and furry body supported by the delicate miracle of her gossamer wings. All insects are astonishing, from the winged jewel of the dragonfly, whose extraordinary compound eyes give this insect the best sight in the animal kingdom – almost 80 per cent of their brain power is dedicated to vision – to our small blue butterfly, with a wingspan of under three centimetres, but still possessing all the bits it needs to function. This is one of our 60 or so species of butterfly, and we have a staggering 2,500 species of moth, some of which fly by day, including the striking scarlet and black cinnabar.
Look up at cloud formations. I can’t promise you Elvis, but even the most prosaic of walking minds can spot something imaginative in the shifting shapes above us. And, while you’re tilted backwards, look up through trees, at the shafting sunlight etching the tracery of leaves, twigs and branches. Listen to the air soughing through their canopy. A whole world above our head, in fact, a whole world in…
... trees, the planet’s lungs, whose photosynthesizing gives us oxygen, whose bodies lock up carbon and whose structures host a mindboggling richness of life – a single oak can support around 2,300 different species, and that doesn’t include fungi and microorganisms. Wonder indeed. And marvel at the soft upholstery of...
...mossy tree trunks and old stone walls, wrapped in this ancient, rootless form of plant life that has been around for 450 million years, enduring, surviving and thriving through catastrophic climate changes. Much more resilient than it looks, moss, in all its varieties, plays an important role in the ecosystems it inhabits. It also provides a softly cosseting nesting material for…
...birds who will, in summer, be raising families, sometimes several broods a year. Listen for their songs, which are reduced in summer after the territorial harmonies of spring, but are nonetheless there for the hearing, like the ‘little-bit-of-bread-and-no-cheeeeese' of the yellowhammer. This pretty bird is related to the bright, streaky cirl bunting, a rarity that is now seen more often in places of good farmland management, but their songs are quite different, the cirl bunting performing a high, rattly trill. With all birds, feathers are a magical feat of engineering and artwork. What more splendid sight than a peacock presenting his tail for admiration? Look for the gift of discarded feathers.
Where next? I glance at the map, a two-dimensional world that tells such a wonderful multi-dimensional story – decades later, I am still grateful to my old geography teacher who made absolutely sure that all ‘her gels’ could read Ordnance Survey maps – no spatial awareness issues in her class! Wobbly gothic writing shows that the farmhouse over the hedge probably dates from medieval times. This writing is quite something: gothic font indicates that the site is of archaeological interest, which could mean prehistoric, before AD43, or medieval, from 400AD to around 1600. So, what of the temporal gap in the middle? That’s Roman, and is indicated on OS maps by a capitalised font. OS maps are brilliant things, and, with a small cross, this one tells me that there’s a…
...chapel in the fields ahead. Now isolated it was once part of a more extensive farming settlement and with its historic toes dipped into Saxon times. A long-gone manor house once stood nearby, of which no visible remains survive. Chapels and churches can be extraordinary windows on the past – and their shape on the map tells me whether I can expect a tower, a steeple or neither. Thanks, Mrs Hogan!
Waterside paths are good for the soul. Rivers and streams, lakes and reservoirs, the latter concealing mysterious depths and telling tales of long-gone homesteads, drowned beneath the water where islands were once hilltops rising out of valleys. Relish sun-spangled waves along our coasts, where red-sailed yachts punctuate the seascape. Beside the paths…
...long grasses are going to seed, stirred to dance by the breeze and mimicking the undulations of the waves. Allow them to caress your fingers with silken softness. There are well over 100 species of grass in Britain, and where wildflower meadows are allowed to thrive each can be home to over 100 species of wildflower, and each of these can sustain an incredible amount of life – our native bird’s foot trefoil plant supports more than 100 different types of insect…and on it goes, throughout the wondrous web. Biodiversity is a richness, to be appreciated and encouraged – all life depends on it. And as the meadows ripen with the…
...turning of the season we may encounter hay meadows, evidence of the year’s progress and so much more attractive than plastic-wrapped silage. Skylarks have had time to get their brood fledged before mowing; there is fodder for winter.
The year is turning, the day is waning. Our senses, all five of them, have feasted on the everyday wonders that surround us and are there for the spotting: the joys of walking beyond the actual walk.
The final path heads home, walking towards sunset and another profusion of the extraordinary colours with which we started. The countryside succumbs to night, with its own silvery wonder of a poetically lovely, moon-splashed landscape. The treasures we have seen are slumbering – and tomorrow is another day.
