Minsmere – 8th May 2015

31 Sun May 2015

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

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.

IMG_2203Something on Birch tree Minsmere (640x427)

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!

Could Be Worse

04 Thu Sep 2014

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

≈ 17 Comments

Tags

Alpine Pasque Flower, anxiety, black-headed gulls, college, cowslip, fungi, horse chestnut, illness, job seeking, Knopper gall, muck spreading, oak, pleated inkcap, seagulls, shaggy inkcap, snowy waxcap, unpredictable weather, viburnum bodnantense

This has been a very strange summer. The weather, for one thing, has been very unpredictable. British weather is always unpredictable but this year it has outdone itself, I think. Torrential rain, gale-force winds, mini tornadoes ( they are called willies in East Anglia!). Lots of humid, stormy days in July and the coldest August for many years. The plants in my garden have got very confused. It became quite cool and wet at the end of June and the beginning of July (just in time for our holiday) so my Viburnum Bodnantense thought Autumn had arrived and started to flower.

Viburnum Bodnantense is supposed to flower from Autumn through to Spring.

My Alpine Pasque Flower thought Spring had come back and began flowering again.

Alpine Pasque Flower flowering for a second time this year

We found them blooming when we got home from our holiday on the 9th of July. The poor things then got a bit of a shock as the temperature rose from about 15 degrees C to 28 degrees with high humidity. August temperatures dipped again and last week I found cowslips in flower in the garden.

A cowslip in flower at the end of August. Cowslips usually flower in April and May.

This week the temperature has risen at last from 12 degrees C and grass frost at night ( in August!) to a pleasant 20 degrees today.

I have found a few fungi recently.

Pleated Inkcap

I photographed a better specimen in May

Pleated Inkcap

which is when I saw this one which is ( I think ) a Snowy Waxcap.

Snowy Waxcap

Coming home from church on Sunday we saw this

Shaggy Inkcap

The oak tree in our garden is covered in galls as usual.

003Acorns attacked by galls again (640x452)

This is a Knopper Gall on the acorns photographed on 26th July

The same gall photographed on 5th August

As you can see, it had grown quite a lot in ten days. They are now turning a darker colour.

Our Horse Chestnut is suffering from the fungus infection that causes blotches on the leaves.

007Diseased leaves of Horse Chestnut (640x427)

Blotches caused by the fungus Guignadia aesculi accidentally introduced into Britain from North America in the 1930s

Muck spreading and ploughing was delayed for a few weeks but was eventually done in the field behind our house last week.

Muck spreading. Mmmmn lovely!

Ploughing

Muck spreading and ploughing. The local farmer is very considerate and doesn’t leave stinky pig-muck on the fields for long as you see.

007Muck spreading and ploughing (640x433)

Skillful and speedy tractor work

The seagulls love following the plough and then stay around for a day or so feasting on all the grubs and worms.

A mixed flock of seagulls

These gulls are Black-headed Gulls with their winter plumage ( no black heads only black smudges on the side of their heads)

Another reason I think this has been a strange summer is the anxiety and worry we have all had has caused the time to pass by in a kind of haze.

My elder daughter has been trying to finish her PhD and find work and now has a large overdraft with the bank. She has been able to do some proof-reading recently which has helped a little.

My mother was disappointed to find she had another bleed behind her left eye when she went for her check-up at the hospital. She has started another course of injections. She has been unwell with a bad upset stomach this last week and when I saw her today she had lost a lot of weight and had become very frail and vague. She only told me about the upset stomach when I rang her yesterday – she hadn’t wanted to worry me!

My younger daughter, after two years out of education because of chronic anxiety has had the courage to apply for a place at college to do some GCSE exams. She has been accepted and yesterday she went there for a ‘taster day’ – a practise run-through and a chance to meet her tutors and get time-tables etc. She came home exhausted and tearful after spending seven-and-a-half hours in college – the longest time away from home and/or family for years. Her term starts next Monday and she is so very nervous. I will be driving her into college and then picking her up again when she finishes which will mean nearly 100 miles a day for me. Eventually we hope that she may be able to get the bus into Norwich but she probably won’t be able to manage it for some time. We are all holding our breath and hoping that she doesn’t lose her nerve.

My husband has had a problem with his throat since April. He has had a recurring painful ulcer at the back of his throat that comes up when he eats. He has pains in his neck too. He has found that taking anti-histamine seems to control the ulcer. He has visited his doctor three times and the first two times was told it probably wasn’t anything to worry about and to come back in a month. The third time the doctor referred him to the Ear, Nose and Throat specialist at the hospital. He eventually got an appointment to see the specialist on the 5th August. The specialist didn’t know what was causing the problem so arranged for R to have an MRI scan which took place on 18th August. R got a letter from the hospital last week asking him to see the specialist again yesterday. R has been getting more and more anxious as the summer has progressed, as is only natural, and the long delays in between appointments have been difficult to cope with. The specialist began by saying that she couldn’t find anything in the scan to account for the problems R has been experiencing, however she had found something else which will need dealing with before any more investigation into the throat business is done. There is a growth on his pituitary gland at the base of his brain and this will have to be operated on soon before he becomes really unwell. He will have to take some time off work and won’t be able to drive for some time before and after the operation. The specialist is referring my poor husband to another specialist who will contact R in about a month. R is very relieved it isn’t cancer but is very nervous about having a brain operation.

If my posts have been sporadic, if I have written a load of rubbish or made a rather stupid comment on your blogs it is because of all of the above. I can’t think straight and I can’t concentrate on anything. My arthritis is playing-up in my hands especially and I am so far behind with everything it is shocking! However, I am a strong person and with God’s help I will be able to support all the members of my family and all will be well.

Meanderings and More March Flowers

11 Tue Mar 2014

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

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

blackthorn, daffodils, fish, frogs, hyacinths, lesser periwinkle, Leycesteria, marsh marigold, miniature iris, nesting, oak, pond, primrose, primula, rooks, rose, spirea, tawny owl, Twilight, viola

I went outside in the twilight this evening to collect my two sunflower seed feeders and bring them indoors. I’ll tell you why later. It was very cold – approaching freezing I should think – but so beautiful. The sky above, a deep blue with stars and a gibbous moon. The western horizon a strange mixture of misty yellow, pink and grey – a typical cold, wintry sunset. The strong NW breeze that had been blowing all day had dropped and everything was almost still and quiet, except for a few blackbirds singing and some pheasants calling across the fields. The largest feeder is hanging from the silver birch tree near the big pond and as I walked down the garden towards it a tawny owl sitting in one of the trees at the end of the garden gave a couple of loud, quavering hoots. I went to look at the pond. It was shining and the surface was a little puckered by the light breeze. It looked like pewter and reflected the trees nearby. Every now and then a ‘plip’ sounded as a fish leapt and rings appeared on the surface – frogs were croaking from the reeds at the far end.

Unfortunately, it was getting too cold to stand out there for much longer and I had the evening meal to prepare so reluctantly I returned to the house.

The rooks have definitely started nesting now. They no longer fly off to their night-time communal roost towards Beccles but are staying with their nests in the rookery. At nesting time they use a different call – almost a bleating sound – and as soon as I hear it I know that spring is here. The reason I collect the sunflower seed feeders in at night is because of the rooks. They descend on the feeders ‘en masse’, just at dawn and any seed left overnight disappears very quickly. I have known them unhook the feeders and take the lid off to get at the seed more easily. The smaller feeder is hanging from a pole stuck in the grass at the front of the house. At this time of year dawn is still quite late, but by May and June with dawn at 3.30am it is not pleasant to be awoken by twenty or more squabbling rooks just outside the open bedroom window. Until I decided to bring the feeders in I was having to get out of bed and shoo them away every few minutes. They soon realised that the noise they were making attracted my attention so they started eating in (almost) silence. Their rookishness always eventually got the better of them and some little ‘whispered discussion’ invariably got out of hand and there I was at the window again. I am a very light sleeper and I began to wake up at the slightest noise outside so something had to be done.

This morning started very overcast and cold but by 10am the clouds were breaking up and the sun coming out. I had some shopping to do so drove to Bungay. Bungay is a little difficult to get around at the moment as it is having lots of new pavements put in and the centre of the town is shut off to traffic. My ankle has been painful recently and I found walking through town difficult. Added to this, I was called ‘dear’ twice within about five minutes and I really object to being called ‘dear’ by strangers. I got home again at 11.30 and put the radio on while I had a cup of tea. Lisa Stansfield was choosing her favourite ~~records~~ tracks I mean (showing my age there!) and one of the ones she chose today was by Sylvester. Listening to this took me back to my youth. My friend W will remember that I used to go out with her brother who had a mobile disco which he ran with a friend. I used to go with them to gigs and help them set up and get the dancing going if it was a bit slow. I could dance for hours without tiring! (This also reminds me of a really good spoonerism I came out with at the time, when telling a friend what I did. I intended saying that I was ‘a roadie and a groupie’ but what I actually said was ‘a rudie and a gropie’). I thought a lot about this while drinking my tea. It didn’t seem that long ago when I was dancing all night with no aches and pains and now, here I was hobbling through town carrying my shopping bag and being called ‘dear’! What would be next, I wondered? Mowing passers-by down with a mobility scooter? Elbowing my way through shoppers to the freezer cabinet in the supermarket and running over their toes with my shopping trolley while they tut-tut and raise their eyebrows to each other over my head? Hmmmm….

To cheer myself up I went out into the garden and took a few photos.

We have a blackthorn tree at the back of the house. It is now in full blossom. The blackthorn at the front of the house is still covered with small tight buds. The temperature at the front of the house is very much lower than at the back and there is often about a weeks difference in flowering times.

Blackthorn tree

Blackthorn blossom

Blackthorn

Bumblebee on blackthorn

This oak tree was given me by my father a year after we moved into this house. He had dug it up from his garden and at the time it was only about nine inches tall. I call it Dad’s oak tree. He died nearly four years ago. A wood pigeon nested in the tree last summer and the shallow nest is still there.