Lizzie's birthday is soon upon us, which offered a stark reminder that I still owed her last year's present. Back in June 2014, I gave Lizzie an otter experience - that is, a morning with one of the keepers at Buckfast Otters & Butterflies - but with a mortgage application, then the winter, I never actually got round to giving it to her. A quick phone call, a couple of weeks ago, changed all of that, and so we trotted off down the A38 on a slightly muggy Saturday, Lizzie dressed in wellies, ready for a morning with some of the sweetest creatures in South Devon. Readers of this blog may remember a previous trip to Dartmoor Otters and Buckfast Butterflies in September 2013 (click here to see that post.) We love the place - it's a real genuine, caring, old-fashioned establishment where the people - you can tell - put their heart and soul into the upkeep of their enclosures, and the welfare of the animals.
Of course, there aren't only otters in Buckfast, and after dropping Lizzie off for her keeper experience, I took a stroll to Buckfast Abbey, home of an active benedictine monastery. Buckfast Abbey is, in my mind, about the most spiritual place in our area. Its tranquility consumes you as soon as you step through the gates, and there's an air of natural, peaceful safety that I just love. The gardens, whilst not extensive, are absolutely charming, captivating even, in the warm light of the sun, now gingerly poking through the clouds. The bountiful lavender garden thronged with bees, the sensory garden, fragrant in the morning air, and my favourite, the physic garden, home to culinary, household, medicinal and poisonous plants, based on the traditional monastic garden. A small pond surrounded the poisonous section, and contained what at first splash appeared to be fish, but on closer inspection were in fact newts. Delightful!
Buckfast Abbey gardens
A Buckfast Abbey bee
Lizzie, meanwhile, was having the time of her life, cleaning otter poo and preparing otter food - fish, chicks, and minced beef. Returning from the Abbey, I caught up with her just as she was about to do the first feeding, of Asian short clawed otters. As the photo below demonstrates, it didn't take them long to climb all over her and let's just say, she handled their fishy licks a lot better than I would have! You don't tend to realise just how beautiful otters are (I've only ever seen an otter once before in the wild) but they are stunning creatures, brilliantly adapted to their natural environment. Lizzie's tour continued on to European otters, and culminated in a North American rivers otter, 20-year old (and recently widowed) Splash who, despite her great age, seemed to have a voracious appetite, and strutted around her enclosure with a sense of worldly wisdom.
Feeding Asian short-clawed otters
There is, of course another reason to pay a visit here, for inside a spacious and steamy hothouse, myriad tropical butterflies (not to mention terrapins and beautiful koi) fluttered freely from plant to plant, some with wingspans the size of your hand. I fell instantly in love with the Blue Morpho butterflies from Costa Rica, whose wingbeats are almost hypnotic to watch, and are just so perfectly formed. In fact, I was so intrigued and interested that I ended up buying a book, The Illustrated World Encyclopedia of Butterflies and Moths, which is stunningly illustrated, and now sits pride-of-place on the coffee table.
Stunning Buckfast butterflies
We certainly came away from this little corner of the county, feeling like we'd got the most out of the morning; and hopefully the opportunity to get up close to these elusive river creatures will live long in the memory for Lizzie.
Lizzie with otter keeper Tim - thanks for a great day Tim!
