Dawlish Beach Day

One of my favourite things about working at Running Deer is being able to go on outreach  days with some of our students, so when I saw that I was going to be on an off site day with SW I was excited. 

When Thursday came around the weather wasn’t great at all; very wet and slightly windy so I was worried that it may impact the day. 

On route to collect SW myself and Anna had a chat about where to take him that would be beneficial for him and we decided that heading to the beach would be a great idea we find that he loves being around water. 

When he got into the car and we told him where we were going he seemed  keen to go exploring which of course added to our excitement too! 

On arrival at Dawlish SW was in a great mood despite the weather. We initially took a walk by the stream and looked at the ducks and the famous black swans of Dawlish and he was great at engaging in conversation with myself and Anna.

He was then really keen to get down on to the beach for a walk. As we got down on to the beach we instantly begun to look for some cool pebbles and shells but we didn’t quite expect to find what we did…

Firstly we found 2 washed up little fishies which unfortunately weren’t alive but SW held them for a while and named them Steve and Chris (haha) before putting them back in the sea. 

As we continued our walk we found several crab shells and cuttlefish along with lots of pretty pebbles and shells. Then… as we approached the end of the beach, Anna spotted what we believe to be either a washed up  lobster or a crayfish. It was sooo amazing. SW picked it up and began to explore all of the tiny details on the creature such as its patterns and texture and we even gave him a little photo shoot and named him Craig before giving him a little send off back into the sea. 

We then walked across to the other part of the beach to look in the tide pools where we managed to spot a few alive crabs in the rocks which SW was pleased about. 

This day proved that exploring the beach can be so much fun even in the wind and the rain. So don’t let the weather stop you….pack a warm jacket and an umbrella and see what cool things you can find!