Berry Head Country Park Tours

From Berryhead looking west. Quick grab with an iphone

Along a nice walk through the nature reserve, this fancy-looking red-sailed boat showed up off the coast.

Berry Head is a gateway to English riviera and guards the southern half of Tor Bay

Berry Head National Nature Reserve is Torbay's most important wildlife site, with many rare plants dependent upon the thin soils, mild climate and exposed conditions of the headland. The high cliffs are home to large numbers of nesting seabirds and it is a good place to spot sea mammals. The walk also visits the two 'Napoleonic war' forts that dominate the headland, and Britain’s highest and smallest lighthouse.

If you are doing this walk in the summer you are likely to see a wide range of flowers, including orchids (8 species are found on the reserve). Feeding on these can be found 25 species of butterfly, with for many this being their first landfall after migrating across from France.

Behind the Guardhouse cafe is a viewpoint, with a coin-operated telescope. This is one of the best spots for looking at what is the largest guillemot colony on the south coast of England, nesting (March to the end of July) on the cliffs below the Southern Fort. These black and white birds (known locally as the ‘Brixham penguin’) spend most of their lives out at sea, and only come ashore during the nesting season. Their small wings mean that flying appears hard work, but to compensate they are excellent swimmers and will swim down to depths of 50m/160ft to catch fish. They lay a single egg which is very tapered to stop it rolling off the narrow cliff ledges. Once the chicks are about 20 days old, the chicks will jump (as they are at this stage unable to fly) from their ledge into the sea, and the male bird will then guide them out to sea.

The cliffs around the last part of the headland are unfenced, and so you are advised to keep children and dogs under close control. On the way you will pass the fort’s artillery store which has been converted into an information centre, with displays on the geology, wildlife and history of Berry Head. Just past here is the lookout station for Brixham coastguard and the Berry Head lighthouse. It came to be known as the smallest, highest and deepest light in the British Isles - the tower is only 5m/15ft high, requiring no further elevation than that given by the 58m/180ft high headland itself, and the optic was originally turned by the action of a weight falling down a 45m/150ft deep shaft, now made redundant by a small motor. Its white light flashes twice every 15 seconds and can be seen for 19 nautical miles. According to the nearby toposcope from here you can see over 2000 sq km/800 sq miles of sea, and on a clear day the Isle of Portland, 42 miles away on the other side of Lyme Bay, and most of the coast in between.

Situated high on these cliffs provides a good vantage point to spot passing sea mammals, with harbour porpoises being frequently sighted. In spring and autumn, many migrating birds will be passing Berry Head, and around 200 different species have been recorded either on the headland or seen from it.
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