Fortescue
Fortescue is one of the scattered hamlets within the Sid Valley. It is situated in the broader geographical area encompassing the town of Sidmouth and is located south east of Sidford along the road that runs from near the Blue Ball into Sidmouth Town.
The Fortescue survey site, however, is the footpath from Fortescue, across the new bridge over the river and along the footpath to the Byes.The junction of The Byes Riverside Path and the footpath to Fortescue is only adjacent the SVA-owned Gilchrist Field.
The habitat in this survey area encompasses parts of the river that can be seen from the footpath along with views in the other direction across improved and semi-improved pasture and a dense hedgerow scrub running part of the way along the southern side of the footpath.
Although geographically a small site, a total of 131 species have been recorded here, 88 of which are flowering plants. In addition to a number of grassland and arable species there are 13 species associated with freshwater margins including the Himalayan Balsam. The Sid Bashers volunteer group has concentrated their efforts to contain this invasive plant as far as Fortescue Farm. This initiative has been successful in limiting the plant's spread further downstream into areas like Gilchrist Field and Margaret's Meadow.
The presence of fresh water in the river along with exposed gravel beds makes it a good site for bird species with 15 different species recorded and this is a particularly good place to see the dipper.
The area near Fortescue Bridge once supported a population of Brook Lampreys. However, the construction of the new bridge unfortunately destroyed the sediment beds that these young fish required, impacting the local lamprey population.
The site has not yielded a substantial number of insect species in the survey but this could be misleading as much of the interesting river margin and meadow pasture cannot be observed at close quarters and as observing many insect species from a distance is difficult many seen would be unidentifiable.
Although not strictly part of the Riverside Park area it does add considerably to the value of the larger picture and is worthy of inclusion the the Riverside Park cluster of sites biodiversity network.