A Quiet Week

Tags

barn owl, bracket fungus, cut flowers, daffodils, garden, geese, greylags, liquid manure, primroses, snowdrops, Suffolk, tulips, winter aconites

We haven’t done anything special this week – just kept quite busy doing ordinary things.  This post will be made up of a few photos of some of the things I have seen in the past few days.

I bought these tulips on Monday. I love the mixture of bright colours.  They are also scented.

I hardly ever buy flowers for the house and the only flowers I bring indoors from the garden are poor damaged blooms that have been knocked over by wind, rain or visiting wildlife.

I love flowers so I am not sure why I don’t have them in the house often.  I know I can’t arrange flowers so that may have something to do with it.  I also feel sorry for them – I love to see them outside where they belong and think it’s a shame to cut them.  Amusingly, whenever Alice sees a vase of flowers she thinks Richard and I have had an argument.  Sometimes we have and sometimes we haven’t.

I saw this bracket fungus on a willow log in the garden.

My Hellebores have just begun to flower.

A tub full of Tete-a-tete daffodils.

These tiny little daffodils are only about 4″ high and grow under the Winter-flowering Honeysuckle.

I found a few more aconites in a gravelly area. Gravel must be where they like to grow. I must pull those weeds up!

The joys of living in the country! Fortunately the wind was blowing the heady aroma away from me. I had a line of washing hanging out on Tuesday as it was warm and sunny and a breeze was blowing. I had to take it indoors quickly once I saw what was happening.

The Greylags are back in our garden and the field behind the house. This is the gander.

And this is the goose.  You can only just see her.

Fifteen geese turned up on Thursday morning. Here are most of them. The geese return each year at the end of February and often there is a day or so of arguments as to who should nest on the little island on our pond. I didn’t notice anything this year but that may be because I am away from the house a lot more.

I got closer to these few. Once the goose starts sitting on her eggs the extended family call in to visit now and then. Her gander stays with her all the time and I am sure gets very bored wandering about on his own. He is very protective of his goose. For the last two years there have been no goslings which I find very sad. They may be laying infertile eggs or ‘something ‘ may be taking the young when first hatched. We have grass snakes and I have seen an otter on the pond, but not recently. Last year I witnessed a Moorhen chick being dragged underwater by something. My brother suggests that it could be a turtle. Someone unscrupulous may have disposed of it into our pond. I haven’t seen any other evidence of a turtle so far. Neighbours say they have seen a mink which they believe has taken all their ducklings.  That seems more likely as a culprit.

I have a film I shot of the former pair of geese with their goslings swimming on the pond.  When I work out how to put it on U-Tube and then transfer it back to WordPress you will see how lovely they are.  I have also recorded a short film at dusk with the song of a Song Thrush and a Tawny Owl hooting.  I will try to post that too one day.

This is one of the two Barn Owls we see regularly.

They are also known as screech owls as their call is not a hoot but a screech.

They look like giant moths when they fly. Their heads are very large.

Primroses and Snowdrops in the ditch between us and the old schoolhouse.

Thank-you for visiting!