Spring Saunters in North Devon and Exmoor

The rugged North Devon and Exmoor coastline is particularly breathtaking in spring. Soft scrolls of green bracken unfurl among primroses and violets, beneath gorse bushes with their bright new flowers, and the ancient hanging oak woods are carpeted with snowdrops and later wind anemones and bluebells, their budding trees ringing with birdsong.

The bright sun spotlights the dramatic scree-clad craggy slopes and the long shadows emphasise their spectacular plunge to the soft blue sea. In the dunes and burrows the grass is dotted with spring flowers and in the valleys the bushes are lavishly decked with tumbling blossom, catkins and sharp new leaves. Gulls nest on ledges on the rocky headlands, wheeling above the frothy green water churning at the foot of the cliffs, while sandpipers and curlews rummage along the shoreline, their shrill piping a counterpoint to the whistling call of the newly-arrived whimbrels.