| Flora & Fauna |
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The Culm Grassland of Dunsdon Farm and the adjoining National Nature Reserve is a rare and most important example of a type of pasture known locally as Culm grassland. Culm grassland is a marshy, heathy vegetation that occurs across parts of north western Devon.
FloraMeadow ThistleDevil’s-bit scabious Heath Spotted Orchid Southern Marsh Orchid Black Knapweed Creeping Willow Meadowsweet Sneezewort Wild Angelica Ragged Robin Saw-Wort Cross-Leaved Heath Bog Asphodel Sedges (Variety) Bladder Birch Lichen (woods) Rare Plants Butterfly Orchid Wavy-Leaved St. John’s -Wort Petty Whin Whorled Caraway Fauna26 Butterfly species, inc:Marsh Fritillary Marbled White Silver-Washed Fritillary Common Blue Purple Hairstreak Narrow Bordered Bee Hawk Moth Dragonflies Damsel Flies Broad Bodied Chaser Golden-Ringed Dragonfly Common Darter Banded Demoiselle Hoverfly’s Sciomyzid Flies FaunaHeronBuzzard Sparrowhawk Skylark Song Thrush Spotted Flycatcher Willow Tit Reed Bunting Tree Pipit Willow Warbler Garden Warbler Grasshopper Warbler Snipe (winter) Short Eared Owl (winter) Woodcock Barn Owls Fox Badger Roe Deer Dormice Field Voles Re-connecting the Culm
The culm measures provide home to a diverse habitat, rich in wild flowers and which support an immense range of other wildlife, not often seen in other areas.
Purple moor grass, the tussocky deciduous grass characterises the open areas of Dunsdon, showing a distinctively pale brown colour in winter, interspersed with soft and sharp flowered rush. The wet woodland and scrub areas are dominated by grey and eared willow with alder and birch, oak, hazel and ash on the hedge banks. |