Nick Baker, naturalist, TV presenter and vice-president of the Royal Society of the Wildlife Trusts talks about Dart Valley nature reserve

My favourite Devon Wildlife Trust reserve has to be… you know this is a really tricky question to answer, but the one I guess I know the best and has given me the most in the way of magical connections with nature has to be Devon Wildlife Trust’s Dart Valley nature reserve. I spent several years studying in great detail the life cycle of the nationally endangered high brown fritillary in this place, and when you are working at such an intimate level and spend large amounts of time with an animal and the landscape it exists in, the place divulges many of its secrets.

From watching a blue ground beetle hunting on the mossy tree trunks at night, a face off with a surprised otter, snorkelling with the salmon in one of the Dart’s many pools, to the frozen gaze of a woodcock disturbed while foraging in the leaf litter in a November twighlight; the memories and the moments are far too many to list here. But suffice to say this nature reserve holds within its boundaries pretty much the best of what Dartmoor has to offer, it encapsulates the spirit of the warm wooded valleys, the rivers that pour off the moor’s main plateaux cut these deep, steep sided paths, creating a mix of microcosms, cosy, soft places, the antidotes to the bleak blonde expanses peppered with cold rock, that is what we usually think of when we hear mention of this place, Dartmoor.

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