Birdwatching

Situated in an Area of Outstanding National Beauty (AONB), and designated as a site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI), Willowfield Lake Cottages is an ideal base for bird watching.

On Braunton Marshes and Swanpool birds such as lapwings, wheatears, and golden plovers, can be found along side mallard ducks mute swans and moorhens. A solitary heron is normally found here as well as a little egret and at night the sound of a little owl can be heard clearly.

Braunton Burrows Nature Reserve is also home to whitethroats and meadow pipits.

The Taw and Torridge estuary is a major over-wintering home for many birds, and species found here include curlew, redshank, dunlin, spoonbill, brent geese and cormorants.

The RSPB's Isley Marsh reserve is also found along the Taw estuary at Fremington and here Little Egret and Spoonbill have been seen.
There is also an RSPB reserve at Chapel Wood (15mins ) offering a great woodland setting for birdwatching.

Willowfield Lake cottages is also home to many permanent and visiting birds. From the cheeky robins who nest in the garage and great tits who can be seen chasing their smaller relations the blue tits around the grounds. to a buzzard who is often sitting on the fence or soaring overhead. Many swallows live here in the summer and at 5.00pm it is like the dam busters as about 30 of them swoop down onto the lake. There is also a resident Sparrowhawk often seen "patrolling" the hedges alongside the cottages.

The smaller hedgerows have jenny wrens darting in and out, whilst the trees near the lake are home to different finches including green ones. A green woodpecker although quite shy is sometimes here feeding on ant hills. We are lucky to be surrounded by delphs, (small ditches) which are home to ducks and moorhens, and swans visit us in the mornings sometimes.
The lake is also home to a pair of Kingfishers ,often only sighted as a flash of blue darting up the lake.