Budleigh Past and Present

The common pond skater (Gerris lacustris) Image credit: David Spears David Spears It was a privilege on Saturday 7 February to hear two distinguished experts who are noted for their stunning images of wildlife. David Spears’ talk was entitled ‘Tiny Lives in Rivers and Estuaries.’   A Fellow of the Royal Microscopical Society, the Royal Photographic Society and the London Zoological Society, he studied Zoology at the University of East London and Neurobiology at the Open University before pursuing a career in wildlife photography.   He filmed with David Bellamy and David Attenborough before later setting up his own production company, Science Pictures.     A century and a half ago the Budleigh-born scientist and microscopist Henry John Carter FRS, pictured above, settled in retirement at what is now Umbrella Cottage on Fore Street Hill. Part of his retirement was spent identifying creepy crawlies that he found in lo...

A beautiful visitor to Budleigh's sister-town of Brewster on Cape Cod.  We have kingfishers of course! Photo credit: Ryan Bushby I do take an interest in the wonderful wildlife of Devon, and sometimes I blog about plants and creatures that I’ve photographed. But really I’m a bit of a dunce in such things: not observant enough about detail, and happy to enjoy them at a superficial level. But every so often my eye is caught by a flash of unexpected colour or an exotic-sounding name. Like the Glossy Ibis, a flock of which turned up at Budleigh’s Cricket Club some four years ago and which I wrote about at http://budleighbrewsterunited.blogspot.co.uk/2010/09/feathered-friends-are-another-link.html And these things are worth recording on my ‘museum in cyberspace’. After all, Fairlynch’s Priscilla Carter Room does have a display area devoted to the wildlife of the Lower Otter Valley. So I took special note of a recent Google news alert telling ...