Yet More Things!

Tags

amelanchier, Ash, ash keys, bristly ox-tongue, clematis montana, crabapple 'Harry Baker', euonymus, garden, greylag, pasque flower, pieris, red-legged partridge, rosemary, saxifrage, spring, Suffolk, tulip, viburnum bodnantense, white dead-nettle, wild cherry

I was surprised to see two Red-legged Partridges (Alectoris rufa) in my garden one morning as I opened the kitchen blinds.

This one had obviously had a bad night.

Please ignore the weedy flowerbed – I have since tidied it up.

Shortly after I took this photo they both flew away.

The variagated Euonymus is looking bright with new leaves.

The Pieris ‘Forest Fire’ has tiny new pink leaves

The Clematis montana ‘Rubens’ I cut back a few weeks ago is showing me that it won’t be beaten.

The Rosemary is still flowering beautifully

The Ash trees (Fraxinus excelsior) are flowering.

The flowers are very small and a warm purple colour. Ash trees have separate male and female flowers, mainly on separate trees but there are a few trees that have both male and female flowers but on separate branches! The trees around us are all females and produce thousands of Ash ‘keys’, winged seeds that hang from the trees in bunches in the autumn. My mother has plenty of Ash trees near her house but all hers are males – so no ‘keys’.

A reflective Greylag!

A bumblebee on White Dead-nettle (Lamium album)

A very over-grown corner of our garden. This ditch doesn’t belong to us but is part of the common land between our garden and the road. I expect that no-one will take responsibility for looking after this but if there is a problem with it in the future we will no doubt be asked to deal with it!

The Amelanchier is blossoming.

The Viburnum bodnantense produces dark pink flowers in the spring and pale pink or white flowers during the winter

Wild Cherry blossom (Prunus avium)

Wild Cherry

Pasque Flower (Pulsatilla vulgaris)

Red Saxifrage

A soft pink Tulip

It looks so different depending on the angle from which I photograph it

Tulips

The new leaves of Bristly Ox-tongue (Picris echioides).  Another member of the Daisy family.

Crabapple ‘Harry Baker’ flower buds

I had an on-line conversation with a member of the WordPress team a week or so ago and asked about my missing posts.  The person who dealt with my enquiry was extremely helpful but was unable to retrieve them.  He would have been able to retrieve three old posts I had deleted on purpose but was unable to find the ones that had disappeared!  Fortunately, a very dear friend who is an e-mail follower has been saving my posts and has sent all the missing ones to me.  When I have the time I may post a page with them on for anyones information.

Thank-you for visiting!

A Few More Things.

Tags

aubretia, bluetit, daffodils, daisy, dandelion, Elder, greylags, Hawthorn, heartsease, Muntjac deer, near-species rose, nests, pussy willow, rhubarb, silver birch, snail-trail, spear thistle, spring, Suffolk, willow

In between racing about in my car to Norwich and Mum’s house, the doctor’s surgery and the hospital, shopping trips to Harleston, Halesworth, Bungay and Diss, I have been able to take my camera with me as I walk round the garden, filling all the bird feeders.  I haven’t had time for any gardening for about ten days and I miss it!  The weather here has continued bright and dry with frosty, misty mornings and warmish days (as long as you are out of the chilly NE wind).  Today has been much warmer with a change of wind direction but according to the forecast, this will not last.  Rain and cold are set to return by the end of the weekend.

Hawthorn leaves. We have two types of Hawthorn in our garden hedges, Common Hawthorn (Crataegus monogyna) and Midland Hawthorn (Crataegus laevigata). This is probably Midland Hawthorn or maybe a hybrid between the two.

A Daisy (Bellis perennis). I love its simplicity.

The Elder leaves (Sambucus nigra) are now almost fully out and have lost the pink tinge they had. They are matte mid-green leaves.  Last year we had the best elder blossom I’d seen for many years.

Goat Willow or Sallow catkins (Salix caprea). Male and female catkins are on separate trees and appear before the leaves. Sallows are a food plant for many different types of moth. The catkins are known as ‘Pussy Willow’ when they first appear as they look and feel like silky cats paws.

I found a Heartsease or Wild Pansy (Viola tricolor) plant on the path round the big pond. Next to it there is also the first rosette of Spear Thistle leaves (Cirsium vulgare).

Silver Birch leaves (Betula pendula)

I love standing underneath our tree and looking up. Silver Birches eventually grow to be about 26 metres tall. I don’t think ours has quite got there yet.

This Bluetit (Parus caeruleus) sitting in the Birch tree looks a little strange. It has a black sunflower seed in its beak.

It spent some time taking the seedcase off…

…and eating the seed within.

The Greylags (Anser anser) have been amusing me a lot lately. The geese are much calmer than the ganders. The goose here is up close eating some food I put out for it. The gander is further away and hissing at me.

This one I found the other morning standing on top of the hedge.

The original goose on her nest on the island…

…was joined last weekend by another goose (nearest to us).

A third goose has made her nest on the edge of the pond. I surprised her and she surprised me when I walked round the pond yesterday. I am not sure how successful this nest will be as it is quite vulnerable to fox predation.

A Common Dandelion (Taraxacum officinale)

Daffodils along the ditch at the front of the house

Daffodils at the top of the ditch between us and the old School House.

Our Rhubarb (Rheum x hybridum ‘Timperley Early’) looking majestic.

A very early flowering near-species rose has buds on it. (Rosa xanthina  ‘Canary Bird’)

Aubretia

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Richard pointed out this snail trail up the side of the house!

I saw this Muntjac deer doe very early the other morning. It was eating the crabapple tree! The leaf shapes on the window are meant to stop birds crashing into the glass but aren’t very successful. I usually have to pull the window-blind down to stop them!

Very blurred photo! You can see how stocky/thickset these deer are and also the white in their ears.

The does don’t have antlers but have a dark triangular patch on their foreheads.

I think I see her tongue sticking out as she chews a mouthful of leafy twig.

I had great trouble trying to focus on the deer. The camera wanted to focus on the window glass of the double-glazing or the daffodils behind the deer.

Richard on his new tractor-mower. The old one wasn’t working too well so we part-exchanged it for a newer, better model. It has a mulching facility which will be good to use in the summer.

I must share some good news I heard today.  My daughter Alice has been told she has her PhD.  She is now Doctor Alice!  I  am so proud of her.

Thank-you for visiting!

A Few Things I’ve Seen in my Garden.

Tags

bird's nest, birds, Common Frog, cowslip, daffodils, ducks, fish, flowers, frogspawn, garden, Great Tit, ground-ivy, hazel, Hazel bud-gall, horse chestnut, lichen, Mallard, marsh marigold, moss, pond, primrose, primula, spring, Suffolk, sweet violet, tadpoles, trees, Water Mint

Two very handsome Mallard drakes (Anas platyrhynchos).

Ground-ivy (Glechoma hederacea). Many of the newer leaves are purple and the plant has a slightly unpleasant minty scent.

As I have mentioned before, when we moved to this house there were no Primroses (Primula vulgaris) in the garden at all. We now have a few plants here and there on the banks of our ditches.

The Cowslips (Primula veris) are beginning to bloom. We have always had plenty of these!

A primula hybrid that arrived unbidden about three years ago. I rather like it.

The house next door to us is the former village school.  I am not sure when it closed but a friend of ours from church used to attend it during the 1940’s.  Where our house and garden is now, there was a meadow full of wild flowers and our friend walked across it every day to collect the milk for the school from the farm next door.  These wild flowers we have in our garden are all that’s left of the hundreds that used to be here up to about 50 or 60 years ago.  I hope that we can hang on to these few and perhaps, by not using chemicals, encourage them to spread.

Sweet Violet (Viola odorata)

This is our parcels and newspaper box at the end of our drive. We noticed during the winter that it was starting to rot and needed replacing. It appears that we weren’t the only ones to notice the state the box was in. I opened it the other day to find something had made a hole in the back of it ( you can see where the light is shining through just below my thumb as I lift the lid). The next day I found this straw and moss had been put in there. Richard saw a Great Tit (Parus major) flying away from the box so I suspect this is a Great Tit’s nest. I carefully peeped into it a day or so later and found the whole box stuffed full of moss and we can also see lots of straw sticking out from where the box sides are coming away from the base. We have tied up the box and put a ‘not in use’ sign on it and we now await the happy arrival of baby Great Tits.

I knew that Tits nested in holes and I also was aware that Willow Tits excavated their own holes but I hadn’t realised that Great Tits also excavated holes to nest in.

The top of the brick gate-post at the end of our drive is covered in moss and lichen but because we haven’t had much rain recently, it isn’t looking as good as usual. Birds have been collecting the moss for their nests too.

This is a close-up of one of the lichens.

The Marsh-marigold or King Cup (Caltha palustris) is flowering in the pond.

I love its shiny yellow petals.

I took this photo of the daffodils round the pond over a week ago and I am glad I did. On Tuesday and Wednesday of last week we had very warm weather (24 degrees C on Wednesday!) and the daffodils that had come out earliest began to wilt.

Earlier this year I posted pictures of these Hazel (Corylus avellana) bud galls. I went to look at them again last week and noticed tiny flies sitting on all of the galls. I wonder if these flies had hatched out of the galls.

New Hazel leaves

Water Mint (Mentha aquatica). The new shoots are growing round and in the big pond.

Horse-chestnut (Aesculus hippocastanum). This photo was taken about a week ago.

This photo of our Horse-chestnut tree was taken on the same day. These leaves are higher and get more sunlight. I was pleased to see that the flower panicles (candles) were growing nicely.

I saw the frogs spawning but unfortunately didn’t have my camera with me. I took this photo of the spawn later in the day. This is the first time I have found frogspawn in our pond and was surprised at how late in the year it was. We have a windswept, exposed garden which may account for it.

There were lots of eggs and I was glad that the fish that live in the pond hadn’t come out of hibernation yet.

I took this picture a week later as the tadpoles were hatching out. The fish still hadn’t woken up!

Two days after this the tadpoles had dispersed but I had also seen the fish swimming in the pond and leaping to catch flies.  They were probably feasting on tadpoles too.

I found a dead fish on the path round the pond again – I found one last year that had been caught by the Heron who had been disturbed by one of us.  I don’t know what had caught this year’s fish as there was no stab mark on it.  It is interesting to see the workings of the food-chain.  We are part of it as we get bitten by the flies that the fish eat!

Thank-you for visiting!

Primroses

Tags

Celandines, cowslips, early dog-violet, primroses, red dead-nettle, Suffolk, wild flowers

Primroses (Primula vulgaris) along the edge of the ditch at the side of the road.  I saw these on Good Friday after we had been to church and then to the Rector’s house to enjoy Hot Cross Buns.

The primroses this year are so abundant.  They are everywhere!

Richard pointed these out to me. He had noticed them while he was cycling to church on Good Friday morning to strip the altar.  After we got home we walked down the lane towards Rumburgh.

I am not sure if these pink primroses are the naturally occurring pink primroses or if they have spread from a garden.  Primroses and cowslips hybridise very easily but as these ones are some way from the nearest house I hope that they are naturally pink.  I have seen a number of pink ones on my travels this spring.

Here is a close-up of them.

These are the primroses on the bank by St Margaret South Elmham church. I took the photo on our way home after the Easter morning service.

They do look very pretty in large groups.

I think all the wild flowers have benefited from two milder winters and lots of rainfall.  We had no time during last summer when it became too dry for the grass to grow.

A couple of lesser celandines (Ranunculus ficaria) are with these primroses.

Some early cowslips (Primula veris) just coming out.

A patch of rather stunted red dead-nettle (Lamium purpureum)

Early Dog-violet (Viola reichenbachiana) was growing under the hedgerow.

As we walked past Cordelia’s house we saw her geese walking down the drive.

They are free to roam wherever they wish to go.

The grass was starred with golden celandines. A few daffodils have been planted here too. More primroses at the edge of the ditch.

Just a few celandines with what looks like Great Willowherb (Epilobium hirsutum) leaf rosettes, a few Common (Stinging) Nettles (Urtica dioica) and Cow Parsley (Anthriscus sylvestris) shoots too.

We went into the field and looked towards our house.

Here it is.

A last photo of primroses. On the other side of the hedge are Jacob sheep with their lambs. I tried to photograph them but the hedge was so thick I couldn’t get the camera to stop focusing on the hedge instead of the lambs!

 

I hope you have enjoyed the flowers!

Before I publish this I must ask for your advice.  I have been looking back at posts I published last April and have noticed that at least one has disappeared.  I have not erased it myself, in fact I hadn’t looked at these posts since I published them.  I have no idea when it/they disappeared.  I remember a post about a trip to Covehithe – I still have the photos in my Media Library.  Has this happened to anyone else?  I don’t suppose there is any chance of my retrieving them; they are of no real value but I would like to know if there is anything I can do to get them back.  I have mentioned this on the WordPress Forum but I have had no response.