This and That – Part 1

Tags

amelanchier, blackbird, blackthorn, bluebell, countryside, cowslip, daffodils, English Elm, English Oak, garden, Goat Willow, green woodpecker, greengage, horse chestnut, Lords and Ladies, Marxh-marigold, pheasant, photography, rainbow, Red Deer, shrubs, Snowy Mespil, Suffolk, trees, white dead-nettle, wild cherry, wild flowers

I have taken a number of photographs over the last few weeks but haven’t had the time to write any posts.   Here are a few of the better pictures from April and earlier.

Red Deer (Cervus elaphus)

Back in January I was driving home from shopping when I saw this small group of five Red Deer making their way across a field towards the road.  I had to slow down and then stop because I could see that they were not only made nervous by my car but their usual path was blocked by a fire someone had lit to get rid of brushwood.  They eventually managed to cross the lane a little further along and then carried on their way.  I took a photo of them through the car window and this is the result – heavily cropped.  I had thought that I had missed them and it was only when I eventually looked carefully at the shot on my computer a few weeks ago I realised that they were there!

The Pheasant (Phasianus colchicus) family wandering through the garden at the beginning of April.

This is such an untidy photo with the recycling bin out by the roadside and my former car in the way too.  This is another photo taken through glass (the kitchen window this time – you can see a reflection in the bottom left corner of the picture).  We haven’t seen the pheasants for a while now so I presume the females are busy on their nests.

We had a storm with heavy rain and then the sun came out.  It all looked so bright and fresh, so I stood at the front door and took three photos, to the left, straight ahead and to the right.

A few days later I stood at the end of the drive and took this photo of the ditch that runs along the edge of the garden. We have daffodils growing all along its length. The lane runs parallel with the front of our property. You can also see my new car in this picture.

Pussy Willow / Goat Willow (Salix caprea)

Goat Willow in flower

Cowslips (Primula veris)

A stormy sky. A photo of our house (and the house next door) taken standing next to our big pond and looking across the corner of the field.

The summerhouse

A Green Woodpecker (Picus viridis) looking for ants in the lawn

I was quite pleased with this photo as it showed all the different colours of its feathers, even the black and white spotted feathers under the wings.  This is a female adult as the moustachial feathers are all black.  The male has a crimson centre to the stripe.

A male Blackbird (Turdus merula) was also on the lawn looking for food.

White Dead-nettle (Lamium album)

Wild Cherry blossom (Prunus avium)

The first Bluebell (Hyacinthoides non-scripta) flower in our garden this spring

There is nothing quite like the scent of Bluebells.  They are wild hyacinths but don’t have the cloying scent of the garden variety.  There is a sweet freshness that lifts the spirits and is irrevocably linked, to my mind, with birdsong, sunshine after rain and hope.

Greengage blossom (Prunus domestica ssp. italica). I hope we have some fruit this year.

Some of the Cowslips in our garden are orange and red.

Pendunculate / English Oak (Quercus robur). New leaves and flowers (catkins) appear at the same time.

Marsh-marigold (Caltha palustris). I found it impossible to photograph this bright yellow flower well.

More Marsh-marigold

New Horse-chestnut leaves and flower buds (Aesculus hippocastanum)

Beautiful new English Elm leaves (Ulmus procera). We have a number of small Elm trees in our garden. Sadly they will only live for a few years before they succumb to Dutch Elm disease.

Lords and Ladies / Jack-in-the-pulpit / Cuckoo pint (Arum maculatum).  This plant has many names.   Its arrowhead-shaped leaves are often dark spotted.

Snowy Mespil (Amelanchier canadensis) blossom

Blackthorn blossom (Prunus spinosa). This poor photo is the only image of this year’s blossom I managed to get.

A rainbow behind the trees

All these photos were taken in April and in my garden, except the first one.

I find I haven’t made a music selection for a while so this post’s choice is ‘Let’s Work Together’ by Canned Heat.  Excellent lyrics, great tune and the best tempo ever!

Thanks for visiting!

A Walk

Tags

blackbird, dandelion, English Oak, hedging and ditching, Italian Alder, Lesser Celandines, ponds, primrose, Roe deer, rookery, Springtime, Suffolk folk dance music, walking, windy weather

On Sunday 13th March Richard and I were able to go for a walk along the lanes together for the first time in months.  The fields were still much too wet for us to walk across them easily so we stuck to the roads and got along very well.  The weather was bright and sunny but the wind was strong and from the north-east so we didn’t linger.

Primroses (Primula vulgaris) had begun to adorn the edges of the roadside.

We surprised a Roe Deer (Capreolus capreolus) who didn’t stay around for a photograph.

This pond was dug a few weeks ago and it is now full of water. It is about five or six feet deep. There is a cottage on the opposite side of the lane which is being renovated and we think this pond was dug to improve the drainage round the building.

Italian Alder catkins

Halfway down our lane a row of Italian Alders (Alnus cordata) grow between the lane and a wide arable field.  The trees are large and I assume were planted as a windbreak.

The Beck wasn’t as deep as it had been a couple of weeks earlier but was still flowing quite quickly.

Looking back the way we had come you can see the ditch at the side of the road is still very full. This ditch, along with most of the others near our house, has been cleared and dug out this winter.

The sides of the ditches are scraped to clear away the thick vegetation which if left, can stop the water from flowing away and will cause the roads and fields to flood.  The mud is then heaped up on the top of the bank and tamped down.  This is necessary work but means that we won’t see many wild flowers here for a while.

This photo shows more of the hedging and ditching work going on.

The ditch in the middle distance has been dug out and the hedge on the far side of it which had been left for too long without maintenance and had grown into a row of spindly trees, was being cut right back.

A view across the field looking in the direction of our house.

A grand Pedunculate or English Oak (Quercus robur) at the side of the lane. It has lost a large branch recently in a storm. You can just see the orange scar where the branch was ripped away.

Another view from the lane.

Another of the muddy lanes we walked along. The sunshine and the strong wind were doing a good job of drying the road.

The Dandelions (Taraxacum officinale agg.) are beginning to flower…..

…and so are the Lesser Celandines (Ranunculus ficaria).

The Primroses are doing well this year.

The Rookery at St Margaret’s village was busy.

More primroses under the hedge.

A male Blackbird (Turdus merula) sitting in a tree above my head was being blown about in the breeze.

These ponds appear on St Margaret’s common when we have had a lot of rain

This is our house as seen from the field at the back. We turned off the lane and walked back home down the edge of the field which had dried out quite nicely.

Our big pond as seen from the field. The white cord is all the boundary marker we have at present.

A view of the rest of the pond showing where the new summerhouse is.

My choice of music today is a video of a folk music session at a Suffolk pub.

Thanks for visiting!

May Day

Tags

baby birds, blackbird, ducklings, dunnock, garden, goslings, greylag, Mallard, Suffolk

This is a post of photographs taken yesterday.  They need no explaining!

Two Dunnock adults (Prunella modularis)

Blackbird hen (nearest) and chick (Turdus merula)

Blackbird hen and chick

Blackbird hen and chick

Blackbird hen and chick

Blackbird hen and two chicks

Blackbird hen and two chicks

Mallard (Anas platyrhynchos) duck and ducklings

Mallard duck and ducklings

Greylag (Anser anser) goose (in front), gander (rear) and goslings

Greylags

Greylags

Greylags

Greylags

Greylags

Greylags

Thank-you for visiting!

Some More Visitors to my Garden : Birds

Tags

birds, blackbird, chaffinch, coal tit, Garden birds, Great Tit, greater spotted woodpecker, greenfinch, house sparrow, moorhen, Muscovy duck, pheasant, pied wagtail, Robin, rook, Suffolk, wren

During this summer and early autumn I managed to photograph a number of animals, birds, insects and other creatures in my garden.  Some of these photos are of very poor quality but I will include them as a record of what I saw.  This post will be of the birds I’ve seen in my garden.

This Great Tit has an insect in its beak and was fluttering its wings very quickly (hence the blurring). It was waiting for me to go away so that it could feed its chicks in a nest box we have in the garden.

I quickly took another photograph and then walked away

Here is one of the pair of Great Tits using that same nest box nearly two weeks later. I am fascinated to see how carefully they hold the insects in their beaks so as not to crush them.

This is a Greenfinch. There are always plenty of these in the garden. The feeder pole is always leaning and covered in mud because of the squirrels and rooks that use the feeder too.

I didn’t quite get all of this cock Pheasant’s tail.

Cock Pheasant

Cock Pheasant

A female Blackbird collecting insects for her chicks.

Another female Blackbird searching for food.

And again.

My daughter came running to me one day saying that there was a strange bird in our garden.  She described it as being half duck, half chicken.  I had to have a look and discovered that one of our neighbour’s Muscovy Ducks was visiting us.  If you have ever seen a Muscovy Duck walking you will know that they move their head and neck back and forth while walking just like a chicken does.

Female Muscovy Duck

Walking like a chicken

I thought I would post this photo of a Wren again as I was quite pleased to get it.  Wrens are quite shy birds and fairly small (3.75″) but have very loud voices.

Wren

I’ve posted this photo of a Robin before too

Female Greater Spotted Woodpecker

Male Chaffinch

Pied Wagtail

Rook

Rook.

Coal Tit. These birds are very slightly smaller than Blue Tits at about 4.5″. You can see the mud on the feeder that the Rooks put there with their dirty feet and beaks!

Male House Sparrow

The usual rear view of a Moorhen as it runs off down the garden

A male Blackbird at dusk

 

 

 

Pollution and Other Matters

Tags

amelanchier, belemnite, blackbird, Blue Tit, claypipe, Garden Warbler, ground-ivy, Jacob's Sheep, jonquils, Mistle Thrush, pollution, rhubarb, tulip, violets, woodpecker feather

The warmer weather that was forecast certainly arrived bringing with it hazy sky – and pollution.  Everything outside was covered with a coating of fine yellow dust – from the Sahara Desert – and this was especially noticeable on our cars.  Here in East Anglia our air isn’t as pure as we would like.  As we live in the countryside many people think that the air is fresh and clean here; but they would be wrong.  The prevailing wind from the south-west brings pollution from London and winds from the south-east bring pollution from the Continent – mainland Europe.  The cleanest air is on winds from the north-east but that is also the coldest!  East Anglia is a mainly agricultural area with plenty of agricultural vehicles and large trucks delivering feed, grain and other supplies on the narrow lanes.  The farmers use herbicides and insecticides and the crops are sprayed at least two or three times a year.  Because there is very little public transport we all have to drive everywhere that is too far to walk or cycle.  R and I are fortunate to live in an area where the local farmers are trying to make the land better for wildlife.  Wide strips of land are left fallow around each field with the hope that wild flowers will colonise them and animals and birds will find more food and shelter there.

Since coming to live in Suffolk twenty-six years ago I have developed asthma, hay-fever and other allergies that I didn’t have in south-east London and Kent.  R also has hay-fever and E has asthma.  This morning both R and I woke feeling quite unwell with headache, sore throat and other hay-fever symptoms.  Fortunately we always have a stock of anti-histamine tablets in the house!

Yesterday, after getting home from taking Mum out, I had a letter to post so walked down the lane to the postbox.  I was hoping to see the Jacob’s sheep in a field close to us as I had heard them arrive there on Monday.  They always bleat a lot when they are in a new field but soon settle down and if I hadn’t heard them arrive I wouldn’t have known they were there.  It was quite difficult to see the sheep and lambs as the hedge is high and thick but I managed a couple of photos.

 

 

Jacob ewes and lambs

Jacob lamb

I then took a few more pictures of the garden, fed the birds and watered the tubs of flowers.  More and more birds are singing and the dawn chorus is getting louder and louder.  Yesterday I woke to hear what I thought was a Garden Warbler, our second summer visitor, singing in a tree across the lane.  As I was still sleepy I wasn’t sure whether it was a Garden Warbler or a Blackcap, the songs being quite similar, but having heard it again today I am sure it is a Garden Warbler.  We do get both birds here in the summer but the song I heard yesterday and today was definitely the faster more garbled song of the Garden Warbler.  The Song Thrush has been singing all day, every day for some time now and yesterday he was joined by the Mistle Thrush.  We now have a wonderful chorus of birds in the garden – too many to mention without it becoming a long and boring list.  Here is a photo of a male Blackbird and a Blue Tit on the peanut feeder.

Blackbird

Bluetit on the peanut feeder. A Chaffinch is in the tree at the back.

 

 

 

 

Today I took some more photos of the garden and also of some objects I have found in the garden.  The belemnite I found in my herb garden on Monday.  I remember finding lots of these when on holiday with A when she was little at Charmouth on the Dorset coast.  They are fossils of squid-like creatures.

 

The feather I found a couple of weeks ago.  No doubt from a Greater Spotted Woodpecker.

 

The broken old clay pipe I also found in my herb garden but about five years ago.  I can’t bear to get rid of it!

 

The rest of the photos are of plants, flowers and trees.

White violets in the grass verge near my mother’s cottage.

 

Ground ivy.  This is an evergreen wild plant and if the leaves are bruised they smell minty.  Also known as Alehoof, the leaves used to be added to ale during brewing to clear the fermenting liquid and sharpen the flavour.  Even after hops were introduced to England in the 16th century liquor flavoured with ground-ivy was still made and sold for a time.  Another name for ground-ivy is gill and a drink called gill tea was made by infusing the leaves with boiling water and adding honey.  This was supposed to alleviate coughs and other chest disorders and was still being sold by street vendors in London in the 19th century.   Culpepper says ‘The juice dropped into the ear doth wonderfully help the noise and singing of them, and helpeth the hearing which is decayed.’

 

Some jonquils.

 

 

A pink tulip.

 

Rhubarb!

 

The Amelanchier is just coming into flower.

 

R and I discovered another goose nest in the undergrowth on the other side of the pond yesterday.  Unfortunately, today the goose was no longer there and all the eggs gone.  The good thing about nesting on the little island is that foxes and other predators cannot get to you so easily.  The bad thing about our island is that it isn’t big enough for more than one goose nest.

Spring is Nearly Here!

Tags

Beccles, blackbird, blackthorn, Bungay, butterfly, Dunwich, free-range pigs, greylags, mallards, Muscovy duck, rood screen, skylark, spring weather, St Peter South Elmham

A windy,cloudy morning on Sunday. R and I decided to go to the early service of Morning Prayer at St. Peter’s church as we were going out for lunch. There were only seven of us there, including Maurice who took the service and played the organ as well. Maurice always gives interesting and thought-provoking sermons and the church is such an attractive one – it has a wonderfully carved rood screen with a rood (cross) and statues on top too. Pleasant talk afterwards with very good coffee.
I think a future post will have to be about all the lovely churches in ‘The Saints’ – the area where I live.
We (R, E and I) took my mother out for lunch at The Dove at Wortwell which is just over the border into Norfolk. An extremely enjoyable meal and everything well cooked and presented. Mum came back home with us for the afternoon and we just sat around and chatted.
Monday was a glorious day; a gentle, almost warm breeze, lots of sunshine and blue sky. Mum had an appointment for a blood test so I took her to her medical centre and waited for her outside in the car. A long wait; even though her appointment was fairly early (10.30) all the GPs and nurses were running 45 minutes late already. Dropped her back home and then drove to Beccles to shop in Tesco. I drove up to the main road at Harleston and then straight to Beccles via Bungay. Just before Bungay at Earsham, there is a free range pig farm and I saw a number of little pink piglets running about. I do like to see free range pigs – they seem to enjoy life, rolling in the mud, socialising with other pigs or going off on their own to rest in their personal ‘bijou residences’ full of straw. The farm close to my house looks after pigs but these are store pigs not free range. One farmer will care for pigs just separated from their mothers for a couple of weeks until they are a certain weight and then they are taken off to another farmer who will fatten them further and then pass them on to someone else. Or, the pigs are kept by the same farmer but moved periodically from one shed to another. Every Monday and Tuesday we have the noise of frightened pigs being loaded into lorries at the farm close by and then driven squealing past us down the lane. Other lorries full of squealing pigs are then driven past to be unloaded at the farm.
I noted that the temperature had risen to 14 degrees centigrade at midday – a spring day at the end of winter. Hung some washing out in the garden when I got back home. While struggling to get the washing line up a butterfly flew past me. I did’nt see it clearly but it was a dark one – a peacock perhaps – and it was flying strongly. By the time I had the line fastened the butterfly had gone.
Rain overnight and a cloudy and showery morning on Tuesday. Caroline, who has retired from being one of our church readers, visited this morning to give me some books and stayed for coffee. She made me laugh very much by recounting an awful accident she and her husband had had at the weekend involving an exploding bottle of home-made liquid manure!
After lunch I took E with me to Bungay to buy Mum’s bird seed. The pet shop there sells very reasonably priced seed – much cheaper than in Halesworth and Beccles. I can afford to buy in bulk (which works out cheaper in the long run) and I order it on-line but Mum on her small pension buys small quantities weekly – well, she pays for it but I go and buy it. We then drove to Halesworth to pick up my medication and went on to Dunwich where E and I walked on the beach. The sun was shining on the coast and the tide was further out than it had been when R and I walked there on Saturday. The wind was stronger and the waves higher than Saturday too. E can’t walk far so we soon turned and made our way back to the car but not before we had both got earache from the cold wind. On the way back we disturbed a bird in the grass and shingle a couple of feet in front of us. By the way it flew and the shape of it’s almost triangular wings I recognised it as a skylark. It only moved a few feet further on and walked about pecking at the ground now and then. I could clearly see it’s crest on the top of it’s head. As we continued walking forward the lark decided to take off and at our head height began to sing! We watched it getting higher and higher singing all the while.
Took Mum for her weekly shop in the supermarket in Diss today. Another lovely day – so many spring flowers in people’s gardens and the blackthorn is starting to come out in sheltered and sunny places. Got home at 2pm, had a late lunch, made a few phone calls then went out to feed the birds. Twenty geese on the field behind the house today including the two who have claimed the island as their nest site. Eggs have begun to be laid on the island. The female lays the eggs in the very early morning, covers them (not very thoroughly because I can see them!) with grass and leaves etc. and then goes off with her mate for the day. Once she has laid enough she will start to sit for about four weeks only leaving them for two very short periods during the day to feed. Her mate stays close by, wandering about disconsolately all the time she is sitting and always seems pleased when it’s her feeding time when he joins her.
The mallards seem to have reached an agreement as we now only have one male with the female in the garden.
Our neighbour who lives further along the edge of the field at the back of the house came to talk to me as I walked round the garden. He owns the muscovy ducks (both female) but one of them has gone missing. The one he still has is sitting on eggs and kept chasing the other one off if it got too close. It has now gone missing and he hopes the fox hasn’t had it. I said I hadn’t see it and he was free to look round our garden for it. They are very tame ducks; they come when called and sit at his feet. The missing one likes spending time with their chickens as well. Our neighbour, his wife and children will be very upset if the duck can’t be found, I think.
I gardened until 5.30 when it got too cold to stay out though it was still wonderfully light. As I gardened I heard a blackbird singing for the first time this year. Tentatively at first and then with more confidence – a clear flute-like song.
A cold, starlit evening though by dawn we are supposed to have wind and rain again. R is away for a couple of nights til Friday.