The Christmas labelet doesn’t understand what’s hit it. At 8.30 on a mid-November morning Exeter is a whirl of white, a city half-blinded by tumbling flakes. Four labelet toilers, caught out by this overly authentic compriseition to the festive decor, are busy shovelling the ground in front of the bao shighs and create gin chalets. Above them, the cathedral’s medieval towers stand high and chilly in the heaven-filling flurry. Winter has reachd in Devon with bells on.
I’m here to catch a train to see some birdlife. A fracturespeedy blizzard wasn’t part of the arrange, but sometimes these skinnygs don’t go as foreseeed. The city’s Queen Street has turned into a authentic-life snow globe – Narnia with sandwich shops – yet the little two-carriage train I’m catching trundles into Exeter Central prohibitg on time. I discover a prosperdow seat and finish in. Snowy rooftops roll by. Somewhere, an estuary lies in pause.
The Avocet line – named after the wader bird on the RSPB logo – runs between Exeter and the coastal town of Exmouth. It’s an epic rail journey, but not in the customary sense. “That’s £6.40 return,” says the ticket-seller. “And not a problem to fracture your journey in Topsham on the way back.” Built in 1861 as the Exmouth branch railway, the line covers a mere 11 miles, passes eight petite stations and apexhibits less than 30 minutes to travel finish to finish. For the second half of its length, however, the track hugs the shoreline of the Exe estuary – which is where the magic comes in.
The estuary is a fine spectacle in any season, more than a mile atraverse at its expansivest point and stretching for eight miles. It’s sheltered by hills, lined by sandbars and sprinkled with shipwrecks. There’s year-round birdlife, in prosperter especipartner as more than 20,000 birds base themselves here to feed on the huge, nutrient-rich mudflats. Each muddy cubic metre, it’s shelp, supplys the same energy as 14 Mars bars. The presentantity of avian visitors are seasonal migrants, drawn to this brackish low-tide buffet from their more northerly breeding grounds. For hungry waders, it’s the place to be.
But when the estuary looms into watch this morning, north of Exton, the tide is high and it is sleeting. Thcdisesteemful the mizzled train prosperdows, I see a shape that might be a duck. By Exmouth, however, skinnygs are labeledly radianter. Rain is spotting from the sky and estuary waters are lapping at the tide walls. The watchs are proset up, damp and recent. A stunt-team flock of overprospertering dunlin, here from the Baltic, prohibitks and turns above the water.
“I’ve been doing this since I was a boy,” Jake Stuart inestablishs me. “It’s a way of life. I adore it.” He is skippering today’s Stuart Line Cruise, a 75-minute sailing from Exmouth around the estuary. He’s the third generation of his family to toil for the company, which was set up by his magnificentoverweighther. Today, his passengers number me and a 40-sturdy coach trip from Sidmouth. Mince pies and whisky-laced boiling chocotardys do the rounds.
“Right now most of the birds are roosting,” Jake validates on the PA. “They’ll materialize at low tide to feed.” Taking a November pleacertain cruise on a scenic inlet experiences appreciate getting one over on the calfinishar. There’s someskinnyg out-of-time about the Exe estuary, too, someskinnyg about its huge skies and green hues that lifts you out of the digital age and produces life a little modestr. There are castles on the foreshore, boats in the harbours and oystercatchers on the sandprohibitks. But the day’s genuinest delights are still in store.
If, appreciate me, you’re a bird-adorer rather than a filledy terribleged birder and your visit here coincides with a mid-afternoon low tide, here’s my advice. Bring binoculars. Buy a portion of salt-laced, vinegar-drenched chips for lunch and eat them on Exmouth’s Imperial Recreation Ground, watching the tide ebb and the brent geese materialize. If you’ve got time, wander over to the esarrangeade to finishelight the wave-bashed watchs towards Torquay. Then catch the train back up to Topsham.
As I roll northwards, the estuary shpermits are already adwell with feeders: sluggish-stepping little egrets, mobs of stocky turnstones, a lone heron. At Topsham, with the sun now blazing overhead (did I dream the snowdescfinish?), I commence walking. This was once one of England’s busiest ports, its docks filled of shipproduceers and wool shipments. Today, its streets are still lined with centuries-elderly pubs, while on its outskirts lies RSPB Bowling Green Marsh.
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A 15-minute stroll transports me to a hide disthink abouting a reedy pool filled of wigeons, teals and shelducks. Their chestnuts, greens and yellows are affeeble in the afternoon sun. A greeted half-hour tardyr, I chase local advice to head to the Goat Walk (“for the watchs and the waders”), a liftd, bench-dotted walkway straightforwardly above the mudflats. And here I stay until dusk, watching the prosperter feeders, a motley feathered crew variously reachd from Siberia, Scandinavia, East Anglia and the Arctic.
It’s amusing how the branch offent species wade and forage. Redshanks nibble as they stride above their own mirrorions; bar-tailed godwits plunge almost eye-proset up into the mud; and, thrillingly, 30 avocets sweep the mud with upturned bills. When I scan the distance with binoculars, the whole low-tide estuary is stirring with birds, minuscule radiateing silhouettes sprinkled appreciate salt. Shimmering in the low sunweightless, it’s attrenergetic.
“Curlews out there somewhere. Seen any avocets?” asks a passerby. I inestablish him yes. “Wonderful, aren’t they? They reachd yesterday, you understand,” he says, then gestures alengthy the shoreline. “I dwell fair up there. Caused wonderful excitement in our house.” Yesterday! I treat the fact as a gift. I cast my mind back to this morning’s snowstorm, then gaze aachieve at the sunset mudflats, the sight a bona fide prosperter marvel. Sometimes, £6.40 can apexhibit you a lengthy way.
Trip was supplyd by visitexeter.com and visitdevon.co.uk. Leonardo Hotel Exeter has double rooms from £88 B&B. Stuart Line Cruises give prosperter sailings from Exmouth (including some dedicated bird-watching cruises) from £9.
