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A Suffolk Lane

~ A diary of my life in rural north Suffolk.

A Suffolk Lane

Tag Archives: Lesser Celandines

Bluebells

24 Fri Jun 2016

Posted by Clare Pooley in amphibians, Days out, Insects, plants, Rural Diary, trees, wild flowers

≈ 47 Comments

Tags

blackthorn, bluebells, Bugle, common backswimmer, Common Frog, coppice, early purple orchids, great crested newt, Herb-Robert, Lesser Celandines, primroses, Reydon Wood, Suffolk, Suffolk Wildlife Trust, sweet violets, walking, water-violet, wild strawberry, wildflowers

I love bluebells, as you no doubt have realised by now, and I don’t think I am alone in my love of these flowers.  There is a scene in the film ‘Howard’s End’ that has one of the main characters walking through a bluebell wood – I find it very moving.

We try to visit a bluebell wood each Spring and this year we re-visited Reydon Wood on a beautiful Thursday afternoon in early May.

P1000109Reydon Wood

Elinor walking down the path towards the wood.

Last year we mistimed our visits, with one visit a little too early and another a little too late.  This visit was ‘just right’.

P1000107Reydon

The trees were just beginning to put on their beautiful spring clothes.

P1000114Reydon wood-001

I peeped through the bars of a gate from the path and saw my first bluebells (Hyacinthoides non-scripta).

P1000115Violets

Sweet Violets (Viola odorata) were growing at the side of the path, as were Alexanders (Smyrnium olusatrum) and Greater Stitchwort (Stellaria holostea) but my photos of them were over-exposed.

P1000116Reydon wood

There is a very deep ditch between the path and the wood (you can see the far bank of the ditch at the bottom of the photo)

The ditch was originally dug many centuries ago in an attempt to keep deer out of this coppiced wood.  The bottom of the ditch may have had heaps of brush-wood in it as well as water to make crossing it more difficult.

P1000117Strawberry

This is a Wild Strawberry flower (Fragaria vesca) – not a good photo I’m afraid.

P1000119Herb robert

Herb-Robert (Geranium robertianum)

P1000121Reydon wood

A mossy tree-stump

P1000122Reydon wood

More Sweet Violets

P1000123Reydon wood

The path through the woods

P1000124Celandines

Lesser Celandines (Ranunculus ficaria)

P1000125Primroses

Primroses (Primula vulgaris)

Both Celandines and Primroses had already flowered and gone to seed in the lanes near to my home, but the woods are darker, cooler places and the plants flower later and last longer.

P1000126Bugle

Bugle (Ajuga reptans) flower spikes

P1000127Reydon wood

An open ride in the wood with stacks of the harvested timber.

P1000128Reydon wood

The pond in the wood

P1000130Common backswimmer

A Common Backswimmer (Nononecta glauca)

P1000131Female Great Crested Newt perhaps

This might be a female Great Crested Newt (Triturus cristatus)

P1000132Frog

A Common Frog (Rana temporaria)

P1000134Water-violet

Water-violet (Hottonia palustris)

P1000135Reydon wood

There are a mass of these Water-violets round the pond

P1000139Early purple orchid

Early Purple Orchid (Orchis mascula)  Unfortunately not in focus, though you can clearly see its spotted leaves.

P1000140Reydon wood

A large coppice stool

P1000141Reydon wood

Another Early Purple Orchid

P1000142Reydon wood

Large amounts of brushwood have been stacked around an area that has been newly coppiced in an effort to keep the deer (and people, I expect) away from the new shoots growing from the stools.

P1000143Reydon wood

This is a typical view of a coppiced wood

Here is a gallery of photos of the bluebells in Reydon Wood.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

P1000163Reydon wood

I love to look up at the sky through the new leaves

P1000170Blackthorn

Blackthorn blossom (Prunus spinosa)

Thanks for visiting!

 

 

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A Walk

28 Mon Mar 2016

Posted by Clare Pooley in plants, Rural Diary, trees, walking, weather, wild birds

≈ 47 Comments

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.

DSCN0276Primroses-001

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

DSCN0277Roe deer-001

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

DSCN0279New pond-001

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.

DSCN0280Italian Alder catkins-001

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.

DSCN0281The Beck

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

DSCN0282Our lane

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.

DSCN0283Recent hedging and ditching work

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.

DSCN0284View

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

DSCN0287English Oak-001

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.

DSCN0289View

Another view from the lane.

DSCN0288Lane-001

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

DSCN0290Dandelion

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

DSCN0292Celandines

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

DSCN0295Primroses

The Primroses are doing well this year.

DSCN0296Rookery

The Rookery at St Margaret’s village was busy.

DSCN0297Primroses

More primroses under the hedge.

DSCN0299Blackbird

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

DSCN0301 pond

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

DSCN0302Our house

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.

DSCN0305Big pond

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

DSCN0306Big pond

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!

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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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