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A Suffolk Lane

~ A diary of my life in rural north Suffolk.

A Suffolk Lane

Tag Archives: barn owl

A Quiet Week

14 Sat Mar 2015

Posted by Clare Pooley in Gardening, plants, Rural Diary, Uncategorized, wild birds

≈ 38 Comments

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.

IMG_4087Tulips (640x480)

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

IMG_4086Tulips (480x640)

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.

IMG_1939Bracket fungus on willow log (640x427)

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

IMG_1942Helebore (640x427)

My Hellebores have just begun to flower.

IMG_1945Tet-a-tete daffodils (640x427)

A tub full of Tete-a-tete daffodils.

IMG_1947Miniature daffodils (640x427)

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

IMG_1946Winter aconites (640x427)

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

IMG_1934Liquid manure spraying (640x427)

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.

IMG_1940Greylag (640x427)

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

IMG_1941Greylag (640x427)

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

IMG_4096Greylags (2) (640x479)

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.

IMG_4099Greylags (640x480)

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.

IMG_1951Barn owl (2) (640x427)

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

IMG_1958Barn owl (2) (640x427)

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

IMG_1957Barn owl (2) (640x422)

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

IMG_4098Primroses and snowdrops (640x480)

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

Thank-you for visiting!

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Sunday Walk

11 Tue Nov 2014

Posted by Clare Pooley in churches, domestic animals, plants, Rural Diary, trees, Uncategorized, walking

≈ 15 Comments

Tags

All Saints church, autumn leaf colour, barn owl, bryony berries, field views, guelder rose, hawthorn berries, Lowestoft, muddy lanes, Remembrance Day, spindle berries, St Margaret South Elmham, St Nicholas South Elmham church, stress, stress management, walking

Stressed!

Yesterday evening E and I went to Lowestoft to attend a stress management course.  Stress in all it manifestations was described, its causes and what keeps it going.  We were told how it affects our thoughts, actions and body and why it affects people in different ways.  We have been given a relaxation CD and a little homework to do for next week.  This is a rolling course; as soon as this one finishes it starts all over again with a different set of people.  There is a day-time course running at the same time as this in Great Yarmouth on a Thursday morning.  There are courses like this being run all over the country all the time.  The room we were in was full of people of different ages – a few had brought companions like me – but most of us there were sufferers from stress of one type or another.  Research done a few years ago states that in this country 4 out of 10 people suffer from stress.  This figure is already out of date – anxiety and stress are on the rise.

Lowestoft is affected, like most British seaside towns, by high unemployment especially in the winter.  The recent down-turn in the economy has made a bad situation worse.   Shops have had to shut and the buildings are still empty or ‘pound shops’ and pawn shops have replaced them.  However, it looks better cared-for than Great Yarmouth and a lot has been done recently to brighten it up and improve the road system.  As well as being a traditional seaside resort Lowestoft developed firstly as a fishing port, mainly herrings, and when that declined it became, with Great Yarmouth, the base of the oil and gas exploitation industry in the southern North Sea.  This has now declined too but Lowestoft has begun to develop as the centre of the renewable energy industry within Eastern England.   Parts of the North Town are very attractive and the old Scores are still there – the steep narrow lanes with steps up from the beach that were used by fishermen and smugglers.  The Scores are now the site of an annual race which raises money for charity.

Lowestoft is the most easterly point in Great Britain and is on the edge of the Broads which is a series of connected rivers and lakes and Britain’s largest protected wetland and 3rd largest inland waterway.  Some of the earliest evidence of settlement in Britain has been found in the town – flint tools dating back 700,000 years.  I will try to make a post about Lowestoft at a future date.

As sunset is now about 4 o’clock in the afternoon we drove there and back in the dark.  We parked on the sea front and, returning to the car at 7.30 pm we could hear the waves crashing on the beach – the tide must have been in.  I was glad to see on our drive back along the Front, with its rows of hotels, bed-and-breakfast establishments and restaurants, that the Beau Thai Restaurant is still open.  I’ve never been in there, but a place with such a terrible name deserves to survive!

Remembrance Day

I looked out of a bedroom window this morning at dawn (about 7.00 am) and saw one of our local Barn Owls flying round the field behind the house.  It perched for a while on a fence post but the photograph I took of it there never came out.  However, I have included the following picture which I took at the same time, strange as it is, as a record of the owl’s presence.

001Barn owl (640x427)

Why this happened I have no idea! I was looking westward and it was fairly bright and cloudy. No pink anywhere! The sun hadn’t risen yet and would be on the other side of the house anyway.

At 11.00 am this morning I listened on the radio to Big Ben striking the hour and I kept the two minutes silence, praying for all those who have lost their lives in war and for those who have been damaged and injured by war and also for their loved ones.  I am finding this more and more affecting as the years go by.

An Afternoon Walk

We have had so much rain recently that the garden and fields are sodden.  R and I were in need of a little exercise and fresh air on Sunday afternoon so we decided to do our circuit walk round the lanes, which were less muddy and wet than the footpaths.

007View to All Saints (640x480)

View from the lane across the field to All Saints church, just visible sticking out of the group of trees in the distance.

008Muddy lane (640x480)

Our lane is fairly muddy as you can see!

009Muddy lane with pond (640x480)

There is a natural pond full of fish just to the right of these bollards. It is so full that it is close to overflowing onto the road.

010Collection of old metal (640x487)

Farmers round here cannot bear to get rid of old implements, tools and scrap metal. I think it gives them a sense of pride to survey this old stuff.  ‘It may come in handy some day! It’s worth a lot of money, scrap metal is!’

011Site of St Nicholas church (640x479)

St Nicholas church was demolished many hundreds of years ago. This is the site where it once stood – the cross is in a garden.

012Lichen covered post box (480x640)

This is our nearest post-box. The lime-green lichen is happy to grow on it.

014Mountain of straw bales (640x478)

Just beyond the low pink barn in the distance is the largest tower of straw bales I have seen so far this year. Not a good picture I’m afraid – the light was already fading.

015Goats (640x480)

The goat on the left is keeping itself dry by lounging on a trampoline!

017Flowing water in ditch (640x480)

Water flowing fast in this ditch.

019Flowing water (640x480)

This is the other side of the bridge.

020Green lane (640x496)

There is still a lot of green about. Many of the leaves have dropped from the trees while still green.

021Field of Rape (640x480)

This is a field of oil-seed rape which is growing very well in our mild, wet autumn. Only a few weeks ago it seems, I was posting photographs of rolls of straw on these fields after the wheat harvest.

023Spindle berries (640x480)

These are beautiful spindle berries.  Only nature could make orange seeds emerge from shocking pink seed cases!

024Spindle berries (640x504)

This is a spindle bush in the hedge. It was glowing in the light of the setting sun.

025Haws (640x480)

These are gorgeous dark-red haws from a hawthorn bush in the hedge.

026Autumn leaves (640x480)

Some leaves are beginning to show some colour.

030Sugar Maple leaves (640x480)

These leaves caught my eye. I think this is a Sugar Maple – not a native tree.

031View across fields (640x480)

Another view across the fields.

034Guelder Rose leaves (2) (480x640)

These are Guelder Rose leaves (Viburnum opulus)….

042Guelder rose with berry drupes (640x480)

…and this is another Guelder Rose with mainly green leaves and also bunches of berries or ‘drupes’.

036Dead oak (480x640)

A dead oak tree. I am pleased that landowners are not in as much of a hurry as they used to be to remove dead wood from fields and hedgerows. A dead tree supports more life than a living one.

038Bryony berries (640x480)

These poisonous bryony berries are like shiny beads.

037Bryony berries (480x640)

They are everywhere to be seen now the leaves are disappearing from the hedges.

044Path through churchyard (640x480)

The path through St Margaret’s churchyard is an attractive one….

045Sheep (640x486)

…especially as one can see these sheep from there.

047Village hall entrance (640x480)

I thought the entrance to the car park outside the village hall was looking inviting.

049View across fields (640x480)

I also liked this entrance to a field further along the lane.

048Leafy puddle (640x480)

A leafy puddle,

050Toadstools (480x640)

some tiny yellow toadstools…

051Autumn leaves (640x480)

and some more autumn shades and our walk was over.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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I talk about what it's like living in a quiet part of Suffolk. I am a wife, mother and daughter, a practising Christian and love the natural world that surrounds me. I enjoy my life - most of the time!

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