How to go on safari in the UK & find the big 5

This blog is about family travel around the world without leaving the UK. We do this in a bid to be less polluting and tackle climate change while at the same time keeping a global outlook. How about going on safari and looking for the Big 5. I've offered a few choices below (six!) plus some places you might find them. But you could create your own Big 5 list... Words from Nicola Baird (see www.nicolabaird.com for more info about my books and blogs).

Safari lodges for glamping on the Isle of Wight at Node's Point. The Isle of Wight
is a good place to see red squirrels and seals. (c) Park Resorts

If you ever imagine a safari in South Africa, Kenya, Tanzania, Botswana or Namibia you'll know that soon you will be looking for the "Big Five" by day. By night you'll be back at your tent sipping sundowners discussing the ones that got away, or planning the next day's sightseeing. The original Big 5 list was for big game hunters armed with a rifle not a camera. The popularity of big game hunting has meant that grand old homes in the UK invariably have some forgotten ancestors' big game trophies attached to the wall. Strange to hang a decapitated animal hung on the wall for generations.

I also puzzle about why those five choices.

Lions make sense, so does an elephant, leopard and rhinoceros but how come a buffalo is on the list? Surely a buffalo is just a big sort of cow?

Of course hunting the big five has changed. It's mostly done with binoculars and a camera. If you spot them all you have boasting rights, for ever. But you don't need to trek around the world to try and find impressive, elusive animals.

In Scotland people reckon the big five to spot are red squirrel, red deer (stag), grey seal, otter and golden eagle.

My own Big 5 list is reasonably tough to complete - but not only do you get to look for interesting British wildlife, you also start to think about healthy habitats as you visit beautiful places in the UK.

Here's some help below to get you spotting the British Big 5. Please let me know what you've seen, and where to find them.

On the hunt for hedgehogs along a Yorkshire lane Nell finds a huge puff ball mushroom.

HEDGEHOG (our lion)

• Critically endangered
• Squashed hedgehogs on the road indicates a population boom, and bust

Spotting a hedgehog is harder if you live in a town or city as they tend to be lined with solid fencing. But at St Tiggywinkles in Haddenham, Buckinghamshire you can see recovering hedgehogs and listen to hedgehog talks the whole year round.

Hedgehogs hibernate when it gets colder - so in the autumn be sure to leave undisturbed cosy piles of leaves where a hedgehog could warmly over-winter.

My friend Hugh Warwick is Britain's hedgehog expert. He wants us to rip out garden walls and other solid fencing and to pay far more attention to these utterly cute beasties, pointing out that they do good stuff for us too by eating up garden pests (so there's no need to use chemicals). His first book was called A Prickly Affair, and one of the next was Hedgehog. Have a look at his website, and if you meet him, insist on seeing his hedgehog tattoo.

SEALS (our elephant)

• grey seals have a double chin
• harbour seals look as if their head has been flattened (if you are looking at them head on)

There used to be an old bloke selling fish at Eyemouth, a fishing town just on the Scottish/English border. Tourists would buy a fish and then dunk it into the harbour where it was eaten by a spectacularly lucky, rather chubby seal.

In Norfolk at Blakeney Point you can take a boat trip to see a colony of seals. Several companies run these trips, leaving from Morston Quay.

There's also a small population of harbour seals in the Eastern Solent which can be spotted between Southampton and the Isle of Wight (see the report here).

It is a joy to see living seals - like all wildlife, look well but don't touch.

A safari tent at Node's Point holiday resort on the Isle of Wight.
You could structure your holiday around a Big 5 animal hunt on the
island - it's got seals and red squirrels, plus beautiful woods and beaches. (c) Park Resorts

RED SQUIRRELS (our leopard)

• grey squirrels are non-native and seem to be everywhere (foresters and some gardeners find them very annoying)
• red squirrels are native and rare

Our dog really dislikes grey squirrels
(this is his 'I've seen a squirrel face', now I will bark)
which may be why our family Big 5  list
is still missing a red squirrel.

I love the way grey squirrels chirrup, jump from tree to tree and are still crazy enough to be hand fed by people in city parks. But red squirrels are rather different, almost mythical creatures that revel in their secret hidey-holes. The best way to spot a red squirrel is to find a place where there aren't any grey squirrels - like the Isle of Wight. The National Trust woodland of oak and beech trees at Borthwood Copse has a red squirrel hide

A few years ago my family spent a day looking for red squirrels at Cragside, the huge Victorian pile in Northumberland. The estate is vast but there are meant to be lots of red squirrels here, even when it's raining.

However we couldn't find them and the website says if you are in the hide near the formal gardens and do see a red squirrel please tell the staff - so I guess it's pretty unusual.

Nell (left) isn't as keen on cows as her sister, Lola, or Dad.

POSH COWS (our buffalo)

• Worldwide there are 800 breeds of cattle
• Most dairy cows in the UK are Holstein-Friesian crosses
• Native cows suit particular areas best - Aberdeen Angus (Scotland), Dexter (SW Ireland), Jersey, Guernsey

Talking to cows at an ice cream parlour
and tea shop in Yorkshire.

The Dinefwr white cattle have been at Dinefwr Castle, Wales for more than 1,000 years. With their long horns they look very different to the sweet-faced Jersey cows who are so good at creating cream - and they inspired novelist Eva Ibbotstone's wonderful children's story The Beasts of Clawstone Castle.

Visiting a farm that's set up for visitors is a great way for young children to see cows up close. Try seeing how many cow breeds you can identify if you are driving through farmland, or on a train.

Stumps arranged to encourage stag beetles to breed.
This is in a London park near Arsenal tube.

STAG BEETLES (our rhinoceros)

• The vegan king of the mini-beast world (and able to fly, just)
• People's Trust for Endangered Species (PTES) is asking the public to join their national great stag hunt, see how here.

In the south of England, especially in cities you can find stag beetles - as long as there is standing, rotting wood (stumps or piles) where they can oh-so-slowly metamorphosise from larvae into stag beetle and emerge above ground to look for a mate. I've spotted them in Brockwell Park, Lambeth. They may be living very close to you, so long as you aren't a compulsively tidy gardener. Allowing things to rot, and having wood and leaf piles helps wildlife so much. Ask your local nature park if they have a stag beetle site and if you do see one, take a photo on your mobile and send it the PTES.

Read a cute encounter with stag beetles here  and an informative one here

WOODPECKERS (our eagle)

• All answer to the name Woody.
• Boasting rights if you find a greater spotted woodpecker's feather (black, white & red).

Here the rat-tat-tat or the wah-wah-wah-wah cry in a wood and you need to look towards the sounds until you spot your woodpecker. There seem to be many more green woodpeckers, perhaps because these are often seen feeding on the ground where they will be looking for ants. Here's an ID guide to the three native woodpeckers.

WHERE TO STAY on a British Big 5 trip
Traditionally safari goers stay in a very posh tent - in the UK this is now known as glamping. And it's fantastic. Look around on the web to find places that offer glamping.  Of course you can still camp with a tent, but as Lola, now 17, explains, we don't camp much any more:

"When I was seven years old my parents took me on a camping holiday in the Lake District. That was camping with a C not a glamping trip. Whilst we had a very good time, every morning when we woke up it seemed as if the lake we were camping beside had got a little closer. And it had - we eventually had to abandon our tent! That's why I'd like to go glamping in the Isle of Wight - no lakes creeping into your tent, running water and comfortable beds without rocks under your sleeping bag. In fact it is the only way I'd consent to go on safari again!" Lola, 17

SPONSORED: Lola and Nicola were guests of Park Resorts on a day trip to see the new glamping facilities at their holiday resorts on the Isle of Wight:

• The Isle of Wight can be reached in about two hours from Waterloo station, then take an Wight Link ferry at Portsmouth to Ryde (with its long sandy beach) or Fishbourne. http://www.wightlink.co.uk/iow/
• Park Resorts has 48 UK holiday parks including the Lake District, three on the Isle of Wight and also along the Essex and Norfolk coasts. www.park-resorts.com

Over to you
Do share your family's big 5 adventures - and also any suggestions on where to find the animals, and where to stay. Thank you.

Red Kites and Roald Dahl: Bucks for books

This blog is about family travel around the world without leaving the UK. Impossible? No. This post takes a look at Great Missenden, Buckinghamshire one-time home of Roald Dahl.  Words from Nicola Baird (see www.nicolabaird.com for more info about my books and blogs).

Delicious drinks from Cafe Twit. Just add fizz and ice cream.

The Roald Dahl Museum and Story Centre is billed as a perfect day out for six to 12 year olds.  I left it years too late and ended up at the converted coaching inn - excitingly entered via a courtyard enclosed by Willy Wonka's gates from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - with two 15 year olds and a 12 year old. Of course they weren't the oldest visitors, as there are plenty of adults there. The exhibition is surprisingly cerebral - lots of words and letters to look at. The games are all about how you can be a writer - even the entry fee gets kids an adorable My Story Ideas Book and a pencil to use as they discover more about Dahl's life and wicked humour. It's a very different experience to the breathtaking Potterworld experience one country away which goes for shock and awe as you meet the film sets.
But Roald Dahl is a wonderful children's writer and creations like Matilda, and the dream-catching BFG have already stood the test of time. At the museum kids are given permission to explore their imaginations so they can travel anywhere, and then write about it. All aided with crazy food and drink concoctions served up at Cafe Twit.

Great Missenden is far smaller than I expected, yet has a wonderful array of shops (bizarrely almost all  but the sweet shop, Co-op and train cafe shut on Sundays - is there some kind of country rule about Sunday activities?). It also boasts spots that could be familiar to Dahl's fans - the library which Matilda visited while her mum went to bingo. The petrol pumps from Danny the Champion of the World (not read this yet) and the "n-orphanage" from which Sophie was stolen by the BFG.

Revisiting stories I read with my kids wasn't the only thing that gave me flashbacks. From 1975-80 I went to a boarding school in Buckinghamshire, an experience I would only wish on enemies - and certainly not children. It was such a painful experience that even now I try to avoid Buckinghamshire. But still as the train reached Amersham and the views opened up I felt that sinking go-back-to-school heart ache return.  This must seem silly as the county is a looker: studded with beautiful beech woods, once well-managed for chair making.  It also takes in a chunk of classic English chalk downland known as The Chilterns which stretches into neighbouring Hertfordshire, Bedfordshire and Oxfordshire.

Marie, Nell and Lola pose while the red kites
swoop out of the picture.

Lola swings, with Marie and Nell in the beech woods.

The area around Great Missenden is also renowned for the successful re-release of the once common Red Kite (a bird once so prolific it's geographical range stretched from Finland to Gambia). After our tour of the museum we took an hour-long exploration through hay meadows and woodlands (a trail provided by the Dahl museum), during which the kids spotted two Red Kites hovering - easy as they have a distinctive V shaped tail. "It's so close you can see the colours," said Lola in some awe when she saw the first. 

Back in the Roald Dahl museum we had another look at the hut where Dahl cocooned himself for morning and afternoon writing sessions. It certainly offered sharper insight into the writer's mind. Dahl loved coffee and chocolate as he wrote (I do too!). Beside the now-dead writer's chair is a desk where sits shavings of his spine (to ease an old injury caused by a plane crash, see his life story in Boy), his hip joint and an equally round ball made from Kit-Kat wrappers. Each equally gruesome, all shouting for their fascinating story to be told...  

We didn't quite travel the world on this trip, but it left us all thinking about how to describe our worlds better. Definitely an inspiring way to start the holidays.