Recommendation Of The Week: Bowling Green Marsh

Today, I am going to review Bowling Green Marsh, an RSPB reserve in Topsham, Devon, England from my perspective. Grid Reference SX971875.

To be honest, there is a long walk up the road from where you can park your car to get to different paths but it’s worth it in the end.

When you get to the bird hide, you can go 2 ways. There is a path into a sort of wildlife garden and one leads into the hide. When you go into the hide, it can be very busy and it’s hard to find a space so I would recommend coming early in the morning or late in the evening to avoid the crowds. If you do this, you might get a space in there but sometimes, a sort of viewing area with books and things is open and it’s never busy in there! It’s quite nice as there are sofas looking out at the marsh and books free to read. It’s perfect!

Out on the marsh in winter, you can see plenty including black tailed godwits, pintails, wigeons, teals, lapwings, curlews and greenshanks. There are often far birds so I would recommend a scope or any long-range equipment.

When you carry on along the road, you’ll eventually come to a gate, which leads to a path. If you stop just by the gate, there will be a marshy field, which will sometimes hold Brent geese, Pochards and redshanks. When you get to the end of the path, you can climb up the stairs, which lead to a viewpoint, that looks out over a part of the marsh and you can see avocets, dunlins, godwits and little egrets.

Overall, I would give this place 4 out of 5 star due to its personality.

You can see a lot more birds here in the winter than in the summer but an osprey in autumn or spring definitely makes up for that. I would say this place is pretty good!

If you do plan a visit, let me know what you think in the comments!