Minsmere – 8th May 2015

Tags

BBC Spring Watch, black slugs, blackcap, bluebells, Common Vetch, crabapple, Minsmere, oak, oak moss, ponds, red campion, RSPB, Suffolk, woods

Elinor took her Art exam over two days at the beginning of May and on the Friday of that week she and I decided we’d go to the RSPB (Royal Society for the Protection of Birds) reserve at Minsmere for a relaxing walk.  Richard was away in Manchester visiting his mother and brother and helping his brother clear his Mum’s house before putting it on the market.

We go to Minsmere very often and know all the walks.  Elinor decided she wanted to walk through the woods instead of going to the shore.  I was hoping to hear a Cuckoo and a Nightingale.  We had a drink and a cake in the café before we set off.

The first thing we saw was this and I have no idea what it is. Is it a canker, a fungus or is it a nest of some sort? It is on a Birch tree.

We saw this very pretty Crabapple blossom.

This is Common Vetch (Vicia sativa)

Red Campion (Silene dioica). The wind was blowing quite hard and I found it difficult to get anything in focus.

And this is one of the many ponds at Minsmere.

Another pond.

The weather, which had been quite pleasant in the morning, quickly deteriorated  once we began our walk.  It got quite cold and then a drizzly rain started as you can see by the raindrops on the pond above.  Any hopes of hearing a Cuckoo or a Nightingale evaporated away.

There are Adders (Vipera berus) living on the reserve and we had been hoping to see them.  We were told by another visitor that they were sleeping out in the open but unfortunately, by the time we arrived at the area where they are to be found, the rain had started and very sensibly they had gone under cover.  The area is fenced off for their and our protection.  They are Britain’s only venomous snake.

Reeds and water. We could hear Bitterns (Botaurus stellaris) booming in the reeds but we didn’t see any water fowl at all.

There was plenty of Oak Moss (Evernia prunastri) to be seen.

It is very attractive with its flat, curled branches. It isn’t moss at all but is in fact a lichenised fungus.

Air quality in the East of England isn’t as good as in the West of the country because the prevailing wind blows across the country, including London, before it gets to us.  We are pleased when we find any kind of lichen as they are often indicators of clean air.

This dandelion plant had a couple of slug visitors.

We saw very many white bluebells in the wood

An Oak tree (Quercus robur) with new leaves and flowers.

This is the building that was constructed last year for the BBC Spring Watch team. This is as near as us members of the hoi polloi can get to it. The BBC are currently filming at Minsmere though they weren’t when Elinor and I visited.

The next six photographs are of a male Blackcap (Sylvia atricapilla) that I found singing next to the path.  The photos are not cropped.  This warbler didn’t appear to be at all nervous and at each pause in his song he seemed to look at me to judge my reaction!  He filled his throat with air and used it like the bag on a bag-pipe to sing.

I was very pleased to get these pictures.

Thank-you for visiting!

Tree Pruning and Sundry (also Sunday!)) Activities

Tags

cooking apple, crabapple, eating apple, Evening Prayer, fig tree, greengage, ladybirds, pear tree, Tree pruning

I thought I would post a couple of photos of what our pond looked like last winter and spring so you can see what a difference has been made by the work we have had done.  By last autumn the willow trees had grown so large it was difficult to see the pond and not only had they grown upwards they had grown sideways and were spreading into the pond itself.  We decided something had to be done.  R thought he might be able to do it himself but the task was so huge and he was away from home so often and the weather so bad we decided to get a local landscaper to do it.

The first five pictures I took while we had snow and ice and the sixth is of the pond once the leaves had appeared.  I have also included a photo of one of the molehills in our garden.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Today R and I pruned all our fruit trees.  We have a Concord pear tree, a Brown Turkey fig, two eating apple trees – a Saturn and an Egremont Russet (the apples don’t look like Russets so we may have been mis-sold), two cooking apples – a Bramley and a Norfolk Biffin, a greengage and three crabapple trees.  The big weeping crabapple is a species tree, I think, and has the most beautiful blossom and strong rose scent.  Apples and roses belong to the same family.  The fruit is tiny and very popular with the birds.  I was given an Evereste crabapple tree for my birthday about ten years ago and I kept it in a large tub for a few years and then planted it at the front of the house near the weeping tree and gave it a prune.  The Everest then sulked for a few years and refused to grow though it flowered beautifully and had lots of apples.  Last year it began to grow at last but not very much.  I always leave the crimson and yellow apples for the birds.  They wait for the tree to be frosted a few times which softens the fruit and when the apples have started to rot the blackbirds especially, gobble them up.  This year the apples haven’t had the hard frosts to soften them so most of them are still on the tree.  The third crabapple is a Harry Baker with maroon leaves and dark crimson flowers.  The fruits are dark red, enormous and make gorgeous crabapple jelly.  We discovered the tree when we moved here, planted so close to the gas tank it had become quite distorted.  R dug it out and replanted it at the front of the house.  He has cared for it and nurtured it for nearly eight years and at last, last year, it started to grow really well and has started to put on some height.  It will always probably need to be tied to a stake but it looks so much better now.

The day today was fine and sunny and the wind had dropped considerably though it was still fairly strong and chilly.  The ladybirds hibernating in our bedroom are starting to wake up.  They were marching round the window wanting to go out so I left the windows open for a few hours.  Some have left, others went out for a while but came back later and some are still asleep.  R and I spent some time outside tidying borders etc.  R also cycled to Rumburgh church after lunch to put the heating on as we had evening prayer there today.  It was Caroline’s (she is one of our Readers) last service before retiring and moving to Beccles.  As often happens, we had no organist but we all sang with gusto and the service went very well.  We will all miss Caroline and her family very much.  It was very pleasant to be leaving Evensong in the twilight tonight – proof that the days are getting longer and the nights shorter.