4-star holiday cottage near Malvern, Worcestershire

wildlife

  • Sheep in our field

    At the moment our field below the Barn is hosting eight sheep and one ram from our local farmer. They are doing a good job of keeping the grass down.

    Sheep grazing field -01
    Sheep grazing field -01
    Sheep grazing field -02
    Sheep grazing field -02

  • Woodpecker

    We occasionally receive emails from our guests about wildlife they have seen during their stay at Rhydd Barn. Our recent delightful guests from Germany sent us this email after seeing their review posted up on our reviews page:

    Thank you so much to mention our review on your new and very perfect done homepage.

    As I did browse your website I also found your picture of the male pheasant in front of the barn.

    So I don’t want to withhold a picture from you of a very beautiful green woodpecker that “keeps your floor joints clean”.

    We took the photo  on the morning of June 15th right through the kitchen window.

    We often can listen to the woodpecker in our area [in Germany] as well, but we had never ever the chance to see one so nearby.

    Green Woodpecker
    Green Woodpecker
    Green Woodpecker
    Green Woodpecker

  • Red-legged partridge

    Spotted recently at Rhydd Barn, perched on the wall of our converted pigsty, a beautiful red-legged partridge! We managed to get quite a good photograph of it:

    Red-legged partridge
    Red-legged partridge

    To quote from Wikipedia: The red-legged partridge (Alectoris rufa) is a gamebird in the pheasant family […]. It is sometimes known as French partridge, to distinguish it from the English or grey partridge. The genus name is from Ancient Greek alektoris a farmyard chicken, and rufa is Latin for red or rufous.

  • Seen around Rhydd Barn

    Here are some photographs Rosemary, the owner of Rhydd Barn, took on her recent visit. They show plants growing in the small wildflower meadow and cut hay lying in the field below the barn with the Malvern Hills blue in the distance. Rosemary also managed to capture an image of a young pied woodpecker on the fence to the hay field. Click on a photo below to see a larger full version.

    cut hay in field below barn
    cut hay in field below barn
    wildflower meadow closeup
    wildflower meadow close-up
    pied woodpecker - juvenile
    pied woodpecker – juvenile
    clematis and roses by barn
    clematis and roses by barn

  • Wildlife at Rhydd Barn

    barn owl
    Barn Owl (from wikimedia.org)

    We receive some lovely ‘thank you’ letters and emails from our visitors. Here, with their permission, is an extract from a recent email:

    Dear Rosemary,

    Thank you so much for letting us stay in The Barn over Christmas and for returning our tidiness deposit – received today.
    […]
    We had a few treats courtesy of Mother Nature. We were visited by a pheasant who peered in through the arched window then minced round and had a further look through the door before marching off down the drive. We watched a muntjac deer come through the hedge by the water trough and walk along the cottage side of the hedge munching the grass periodically until he got to the gap at which point he dived through and bounced across the second field to the far hedge. We also saw a barn owl which dropped into the corner of the field immediately the other side of the fence from the arched window! The owl dropped a couple more times into the field before going into the garden of the house at the end of the drive. It was all lovely to see.

  • Woodpecker seen at Rhydd Barn

    [soliloquy id=”804″]

    We recently spotted this green woodpecker hopping about on the grass outside Rhydd Barn. Here is a hastily taken photo of it. We are trying to increase wildlife and around the barn. For example, we manage the fields below the barn to encourage the growth of wild flowers.