Bristol's wildlife wonders

I love Bristol. It's a beautiful city and is where the fantastic team at Immediate Media who produce the RSPB magazines with us are based, so I always love going to visit. It is also an absolute hotspot for wildlife. It even has its own endemic species – that means they are found nowhere else in the world!

We have friends who conveniently live 10 minutes from the world famous Avon Gorge, home to many rare plants and species of whitebeam tree only “discovered” in the last few years and found nowhere else. So when my wife Laura asks if I’d like to visit them, it’s a resounding "yes" – especially when it coincides with the emergence and flowering times of species that would be new to my list...

Bristol is so good for rarities that even scarcities such as the parasitic ivy broomrape grow by the pavement (Mark Ward)

I recently bought myself a bat detector from the shop here at RSPB HQ at The Lodge and a nifty, and easy to use, piece of kit it is. As it says on the RSPB shop website, it “converts bats' inaudible ultra-sonic sounds to frequencies in the range of human hearing, and allows you to identify which species of bats are present.” How good is that?!

A cave full of goblins
Having only confidently recognised four species of UK bat before, this was a must to help me discover the secret world of these fascinating mammals. Instead of trying it out in the back garden first on the commoner species, as any sensible person would do, it was in at the deep end. I'd booked us a hotel not far from Cheddar Gorge for Friday night, enabling me to try it out on the rare greater horseshoe bats that live in one of the caves – a species I hadn't seen before. It was a fraught journey down with traffic delays making me worry we’d arrive too late, but all was fine and we found ourselves outside the cavern in the twilight, with the feral goats bleating and grazing the verges nearby having come down form the gorge. Greater horseshoe bats have a unique frequency and sound – I likened it to a laughing goblin. Ever heard a goblin laugh? No, neither have I, but I imagine that’s what they’d sound like. Once I’d set the dial to the required frequency, I began to hear the weird warble and we saw large bats flitting around the cliffs – job done.

Cheddar pink - well worth risking my neck shinning down a ravine for (Mark Ward)

Pretty in pink
I was up at 5am the next morning (sorry Laura) ready to climb to the top of The Gorge to settle a score with an ultra rare plant that I’d previously missed here (I now know it was because I’d come too late in the season). It looked like I would miss Cheddar pink again, but scanning across a crag, I spied a blob of pink in my binoculars – there it was! Scrambling down a  sheer cliff face/very carefully making my way down to the site, I enjoyed it in close up glory and was pleased to find that it even smelled nice. Looking around I found more, but also lots of clumps of non-flowering pinks. That was why I hadn’t noticed it until now – it was almost finished flowering. Phew... I found a few more goodies, before it was time to head to Bristol.

In the evening, the guys were keen to go and play with the bat detector so we took it out to the local nature reserve nearby and had great fun. We saw, and detected, 5-6 species in total. I’d love to know if you’ve had any luck with a bat detector and if you have any tips for a beginner like me. There's some good background on bats on the RSPB website.

I do like to be beside the seaside
The next morning it was off to Brean Down – a beautiful spot on the coast – where I was hoping to see more rare plants. White rock rose grows only in a handful of places in the UK, but is here in abundance. Fortunate on the timing again, there was lots of it, but only a few flowers.

The super rare white rock rose (Mark Ward)

Graylings were the commonest butterfly and they were so well camouflaged on the sun-baked rocks that it was only when they flew up at our feet that we knew they were there! We had a great walk round and a picnic and ice cream on the beach – who said wildlife-watching couldn’t be done in comfort?

Camouflage king - it was spot the grayling time on Brean Down's south-facing slope (Mark Ward)

Before we left to head home to Cambridgeshire, I stopped at the foot of the cliffs in the Avon Gorge where I could see whitebeams growing on the cliffs. With a lot of help from the experts, I knew I’d seen three of the endemic new species. Pretty mind blowing stuff really. I wonder if the climbers making their way expertly down the cliffs had any idea just what rarities they were passing.

How's your summer of wildlife-watching going?
Don’t forget to let us know what you’ve been up to and what you’ve been seeing this summer by leaving a comment below or emailing natureshome@rspb.org.uk Thanks for all your reports so far – please keep them coming. Your next issue of Nature's Home will be with you in the next few days, so make sure you check out my "Look out for" challenge, which is packed with things to look for over the coming weeks.