When the Day Fades: An Evening Safari at Mornacott
There’s a particular kind of magic that settles over the North Devon countryside in the hour before dusk. The light turns golden, the air cools just enough to sharpen your senses, and the estate — which has been quietly going about its day — begins to stir in new and unexpected ways.
That’s when the safari sets off.
Into the Hedgerows
Climbing aboard the buggy as the sun dips low, you wind your way through Mornacott’s hedgerows — thick, tangled corridors that have been highways for wildlife long before any road was ever built. Slow down here. Look closely. A tiny wren darts through the bramble. A butterfly clings to the last warm patch of bark. Somewhere above you, a buzzard circles in that unhurried way buzzards do, reading the thermals, watching everything.
The children are wide-eyed. This is not a screen. This is real.
Out Into the Open
Emerging from the hedgerows, the landscape opens up and the evening sky suddenly feels enormous. The long grass hums with insects — grasshoppers and crickets keeping up their warm-weather chorus as the buggy rolls slowly along the field edge. It’s the kind of sound you don’t notice until you stop talking, and then it’s everywhere.
You climb up into the deer hide — a little elevated, a little hidden — and scan the treeline. Someone pulls out the Merlin app, holds it up, and within seconds it’s picking up calls you couldn’t name yourself. A song thrush. You squint into the hedgerow trying to match the sound to a shape, and occasionally — gloriously — you do.
Then it’s over to the wildlife cameras, checked quietly by your guide, the footage revealing who’s been passing through while nobody was watching. Foxes ambling through at 2am. A roe deer pausing in the exact spot you’re standing now. It’s a small reminder that the estate never really goes quiet — you’re just catching the daytime shift.
The Pause
Halfway through, you stop. Someone hands you a hot chocolate. Steam rises. The sky is bruising purple at the edges now, and the hedgerow has gone quiet in a different way — expectant, almost. A bat flickers past so fast you almost miss it, then another. Then five. The kids are pointing everywhere at once.
This is the moment the evening shifts.
Into the Dark
Setting off again into the gathering dusk, the estate feels like somewhere else entirely. The familiar tracks look different now — narrower, quieter, the hedgerows pressing in on either side as the last of the light disappears behind the hill. Eyes adjust. Voices drop. There’s an unspoken agreement that stillness is rewarded out here.
The torch beams sweep slowly across the field margins and something moves in the long grass — too quick to name, gone before you can point. A little further on, an owl calls from somewhere in the wood. One long note, then silence. The children freeze, listening, hoping it calls again.
It does.
As you make your way toward the open field, a pale shape crosses the track ahead — low, effortless, silent. A barn owl, quartering the meadow edge with that ghostly unhurried drift, working the grass systematically before banking away and vanishing into the dark as quietly as it appeared. Nobody speaks for a moment.
The buggy rolls on, slower now. Your guide cuts the engine and you sit in the full dark, just listening — bats clicking overhead, a distant fox bark carrying across the valley, the grass still humming faintly around you. This is North Devon at its most alive, and somehow you had no idea.
Further on, the spotlight sweeps the field edge and catches two amber eyes. The buggy slows. A fox pauses in the beam — then a smaller shape edges forward beside her. Then another. A vixen and her cubs, unhurried and unbothered, holding their ground just long enough for everyone to see before melting back into the dark.
Back to the Cottage
By the time you roll back to Mornacott, the stars are out and the children are quietly triumphant — whispering about the fox cubs, recreating the barn owl’s wingspan with outstretched arms.
It’s the kind of evening that reminds you why a North Devon holiday at a luxury cottage on a working farm near Exmoor is something altogether different — and why, somewhere around the second glass of wine, you’ll already be thinking about coming back.