Middlebere

[puddleshark]

February sunshine, warm enough to tempt a walker to unzip his or her coat. Took the track to Middlebere Farm, a scattering of barns and cottages on a finger of high land between two inlets of Poole Harbour. The first lambs in the fields. Also, hairy beasties.






Seen, but not photographed: furtive movement through the reedbeds. Sika deer.


A mistlethrush singing in the thorn hedge beside the track.






Middlebere Farmhouse, 16th century. Now a National Trust holiday home. (For a glimpse inside, see the website )


The old Bakehouse.

The National Trust has two bird hides down at Middlebere, each overlooking a different harbour inlet.


View from the hide overlooking Middlebere Lake. The birds were too distant for my small lens, so no bird photography, but it was a peaceful place to sit, listening to the geese calling and ducks whistling. And I saw lapwings! A flock thirty or forty strong. Wonderful to see lapwings again, after so many years.


The tiny fuzzy dots along the far shoreline are Lapwings and Shelducks and Canada geese (though you'll have to take my word for it).


The hide overlooking Wytch Lake.


The water empty of birds on my arrival. But as I sat in the hide with my thermos of coffee, a small armada of Canada geese emerged from the reeds.




Middlebere Heath.


And overhead, two very conversational crows.

Comments

[heleninwales]

The National Trust have some really interesting holiday homes. That one would be bigger than we would want to rent, but we did stay in this National Trust property, Foel Gopyn. It wasn't quite as off-grid as we'd been led to believe, but still pretty remote, especially for a city dweller.

[puddleshark]

Foel Gopyn looks lovely & peaceful, right off the beaten track.

I do love some of the National Trust's quirkier properties. Maybe one day I'll manage a winter break in one of them...

[heleninwales]

There are some smaller properties that are not too expensive for a couple or single person if you go out of season. Foel Gopyn only slept 4 and the prices from November to February (excluding Christmas, of course) were not too bad

[benicek]

I the NT do a decent job of keeping their holiday properties free of excessive external modernisation.

[puddleshark]

Yes, the National Trust own quite a few old farmhouses in this area, and they're always immaculately restored on the outside. It's just a shame that the bare gardens always scream "Holiday Property".