Berry Head

Sketch map of Berry Head

Berry Head is a promontory forming the southern margin of Torbay. It's good for a nice walk round, the seawatching can be very good and the scrub and woodland provide a breathing space for passage migrants. It's also my top "You should have been here yesterday" site.

Buses to Brixham stop by the car park behind the main shopping road, five minutes' walk to the harbour. You can catch the 17 bus (an hourly service) up to Shoalstone Beach on Berry Head Road but you'd be missing out on a very picturesque harbour and the chance of a bit of seawatching. From the harbour you can carry on up King Street and thence up Berry Head Road but if you're doing that you might as well get the bus.

Walking along the South side of the harbour check out what's in the water: you might see a seal or a dolphin winding through the boats, possibly a shag or a red-breasted merganser. If you walk down to the end of the breakwater you can do a sweep of Torbay, in Winter you've a chance of great northern or black-throated diver.

Once you've got as far as the breakwater you can take the road or the steps up to Berry Head Road. There are a couple of places where you can stop and have a look over the bay.

Just after the Berry Head Hotel there's a gate to the footpath through the woodland and up to the head. This is a rough path which includes a long sequence of steps so you may prefer to go the long way along the road.

Once you get to the top of the path the landscape opens out. The first port of call is over a moat and into a Napoleonic War fortification for a cup of tea in the café. Sitting outside you get a view out over the headland and into the English Channel.

Berry Head from the fort

Shags and gulls are generally the most obvious birds around. At the right times of year you'll also see guillemots and razorbills, these nest on the cliffs. To get a better view of these there's a hide on the other side of the wall that gives a grandstand view of the most popular cliff face.

Coming back from the hide and wandering down to the lighthouse most of the area is grassed with a few patches of brambles and scrub. Meadow pipits, robins and wrens are the most obvious birds round here but you never know your luck. Looking out to see you'll usually see gannets, if the dolphins are hunting close to you can get very close view of the gannets as they follow the hunt. Depending on the time of year and conditions you could also strike lucky with skuas or shearwaters, particularly look out for Balearic shearwaters in late Summer.

Gannet

Leaving this fort and following the path round the headland you'll get to more abandoned guardhouses and the visitor centre. On a nice day this is a very pleasant wander.

The fort from Berry Head

Meadow pipit

Getting back you can retrace your steps along the path or you can take one of the paths into the scrubby woodland. Depending on which paths you follow you'll either get back to Berry Head Road or the path that takes you back down the steps to the road.