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A Suffolk Lane

~ A diary of my life in rural north Suffolk.

A Suffolk Lane

Tag Archives: rookery

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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A Walk Across the Fields.

29 Sat Mar 2014

Posted by Clare Pooley in churches, Gardening, Rural Diary, walking

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

All Saints church, bird scarer, gargoyle, gravestones, rookery, round towers, stained glass, verges, wood carving

Last Sunday afternoon R and I decided to go for a short walk across the fields and take in All Saints Church on the way.  All Saints was a member of our benefice until the 1970s when it was deemed redundant and is now looked after by The Churches Conservation Trust which is a charity which helps to protect historic churches at risk.  The churches remain consecrated but no longer have regular worship in them.  I think we have a couple of services a year in this church, notably a Songs of Praise service in midsummer in which we sing a lot of favourite hymns or perhaps a collection of hymns with a common theme.  If people wish to hold a funeral there for example, special permission has to be sought before it can take place.  Many locals were upset when the church was closed and some would love it if it were in use again.  This would not be practicable unfortunately.  Our poor Rector has eleven churches to look after virtually on his own as it is, and bringing All Saints back into the benefice would not be a viable proposition.

The lichen and moss on top of our gate post.

001Lichen & moss on top of gate post (640x480)

 

The view of our garden from the gate,

002View of garden from gate (640x480)

 

and the view from the gate of the verge on the other side of the hedge.  This is common land but we try to keep it as tidy as we can.  Looking at the blackthorn suckers round the telegraph pole we really ought to do something about those quite soon.

014Verge, common land (640x480)

 

We walked a little way down our lane and saw the church across a field of oil-seed rape.

004All Saints church (640x480)

 

We turned down another little lane off ours and noted someone mowing their verge.  Some people make their verges so neat and tidy they look like little lawns, with not a weed in sight.  They must get very disappointed when a tractor drives all over it.  We don’t mow our verge mainly because it is such a large area and also because the ground is so uneven and slopes down to our deep ditch.  R strims it every now and then and we try to keep the tree seedlings to a minimum.

We then walked through a yard and then through a gate into a field with a footpath at the side.

The view across the fields from the path.

005View across fields from path (640x480)

 

Our rookery at St, Nicholas.

006St Nicholas rookery (640x480)

 

The strange looking bird to the left of the photo isn’t a bird but a bird-scarer kite.

046Birdscarer kite (640x427)

 

A couple of cloud photos.

 

 

009Clouds (640x480)

010Clouds (640x480)

All Saints church.

012All Saints church (640x480)

 

A gargoyle waterspout.  This one looks like a lion.

016Gargoyle waterspout (640x480)

 

A stained glass window.  Holes in the window have been patched with fragments of other stained glass.

017Stained glass (480x640)

 

Carved bench ends.  I’m afraid the third one is very blurred but I had to include it as it is the only one I have of the horse.

018Bench ends (480x640)

019Bench end (640x480)

020Blurred bench end (640x480)

021Bench end (640x480)

 

 

 

 

A beautifully carved door.

022Carved wooden door (640x480)

 

The font.

059Font (640x427)

 

The altar.

060Altar (640x427)

 

Etched glass in the porch.

023Etched glass (480x640)

 

A gravestone with a very worn death’s head at the top left.

024Grave stone (640x480)

 

A view of the graveyard from a comfortable bench in the sun.

063Churchyard (640x427)

 

Tiny lancet windows in the tower.  Round towers are usually Saxon towers and East Anglia has more round towers than any other part of the country.

025Lancet windows (480x640)

 

We then had a chat with friends who live in a farm house next to the church and who keep the church tidy and clean.

We had a lovely day today (29th March) and I was able to spend a little time in the garden this afternoon.  I won’t have time tomorrow as we have church, then I will be cooking lunch for us and my mother and then spending time with her during the afternoon.

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March

04 Tue Mar 2014

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

≈ 9 Comments

Tags

bacon onion potato sauté, blackthorn, cattle, chickens, Coffee morning, common reeds, cooking, ditching, Dog's Mercury, electric fence, farmyard, good food, greylags, Italian alders, ivy, lesser celandine, Lords and Ladies, marble galls, narcissi, nature, phone box library, photography, primroses, quiz night, rookery, Rumburgh Church, sheep, snowdrops, St James South Elmham, St Margaret South Elmham, St Michaels South Elmham, stinging nettle, the Beck, trees

A wet start to the month.  R and I went off in the rain to the benefice coffee morning at the Rector’s house.  We could find nothing to bring with us this time and, as usual, I had not done any baking, so we just took ourselves and a little money.  We bought raffle tickets, a classical music c.d., a jar of the Rector’s home-made lenten three-fruit marmalade (i.e. without whisky) and a jar of plum jam.  After indulging in a bit of chit-chat and getting the local gossip (no raffle prizes this time!) we left to go shopping in Halesworth.  Boring groceries shop in the Co-Op and then, while R read the paper in the car, I walked in to town to see if I could find some flowers for the church.  I eventually found what I was looking for in the third place I visited – some really pretty multi-headed narcissi, some in yellow and some in a creamy-white.  The individual flowers very tiny and delicate;  I bought two bunches of each colour.

The rain was easing off a little by the time we got to Rumburgh church but the path to the church was very puddly and muddy.  The snowdrops were still looking good and the primroses were just starting to come out.  The churchyard will be a mass of wild flowers very soon.  We found a suitable vase in the cupboard and just put the poor flowers in water.  I cannot attempt anything more than this and even this made the flowers look as if ashamed to be where they were.  They all huddled in the middle of the vase and faced inwards and no matter what I did they twisted back and hid their faces.  I eventually gave up,  put the vase on a ledge and checked that the other flowers in the church were all o.k.

I went out to feed the birds later that afternoon after the rain had stopped and the sun had come out.  Something, probably a squirrel, had pulled the top off one of my fat block feeders and had removed and taken away a block that I had only put in the day before.  I mended the feeder, replaced the block with a new one and wired up the top to prevent it being pulled apart so easily again.  We shall see!  I took a couple of photos of the geese and some of next door’s ****** chickens in the garden again.

020Next door's chickens (640x480)

 

 

022Pair of geese in garden (640x480)

I discussed with E what she would like for her evening meal and we decided on one of her current favourites – fried bacon, potatoes and onions.  I added some diced eating apple as I thought that might go well with it.  E was of a different opinion!

024Bacon, onion, apple and potato (640x480)

 

R and I set off for the quiz at St James at 7.00pm.  We had become quite reluctant to leave our nice warm home and get into my very cold, damp car.  It was just 1 degree celsius outside and it took the whole journey to de-mist the windscreen.  I drove most of the way bending forward and peering through the only clear bit at the bottom.  Fortunately, we met no-one on the journey but the real danger is in the deep ditches at the sides of the road.

The quiz was great fun and the six of us on our team all know each other and get on well.  We eventually came second which was very pleasing.  R and I also won two prizes in the raffle.  The food provided by the village hall committee (I suppose) and cooked by two ladies from the village was really good.  A pork casserole or a vegetable bake with a baked potato and a little pot of butter for the first course and then a choice of four or five (I can’t remember how many) desserts with cream or custard for the second course.  This was followed by tea or coffee with a chocolate mint – all for £8.00 per person.  There was thick frost on the cars when we left just after 11.00pm.

A lovely bright morning and hardly any wind the next day.  We went to church at St Michael’s.  This is a very small church in the middle of fields and has only recently had electricity put in – only a couple of sockets though.  There is no electric light, I think, and no heating except for an enormous very old gas heater at the back of the church.  If they have evening services they have oil lamps which makes it look so lovely.  The lane is very narrow and there aren’t many places to park.  R squashed up as close as he could to the electric fence and had great difficulty in getting out of the car.  The fence might not have been switched on as there weren’t any animals in the field – we weren’t going to take any chances though!

058St Michael's Church (480x640)

 

 

057Electric fence at St Michael's (480x640)

By the time we had had lunch and washed up the sun had disappeared and the wind had got up again.  R and I went out for a walk in the lanes near our house.

There is still a lot of standing water about.  This water is as the base of a hedge on St Margaret’s common.

025Water under the hedge at St Margaret's common (640x480)

 

In the village of St Margaret South Elmham is the old phone box which they have converted into a mini library.

027The phone box library (640x480)

 

The rooks are busy in the rookery near the old rectory.

029St Margaret's rookery (640x480)

 

The geese who live at the old rectory were resting for a change!

030Cordelia's geese (640x480)

 

The churchyard is full of pretty flowers.

031St Margaret South Elmham churchyard (640x480)

 

Lots of common reeds in the ditches at the side of the lane all waving in the wind.

033Common reeds in ditch (640x480)

 

The tributary to the Beck at Froghall.

034Tributary to the Beck at Froghall (480x640)

 

Some lovely silhouettes of trees on the skyline.

035Trees on horizon (640x480)

 

Blackthorn just starting to come out in the new hedge.

039Blackthorn (640x480)

 

Marble galls.

040Marble galls in hedgerow (480x640)

 

The top of our lane.

041Top of our lane (640x480)

 

The fields in St James have very few hedges.  It is very windswept here and very cold!

042View across fields (640x480)

 

Primroses at the side of the lane.

043Primroses (640x480)

 

And lesser celandines.

044Lesser celandines (640x480)

 

A lot of work has been done here at the bridge to dig out the ditch again and lay new drainage pipes.

045Newly cleared ditch (640x480)

 

A row of Italian Alders with catkins.  Not a very clear photo because of the wind and my lack of skill.

046Italian alder trees (480x640)

 

The farmyard with sheep wandering about freely and cattle in the barn feeding from their manger.

047Farmyard (640x480)

 

Our lane again – muddier now.

048Muddy lane (640x480)

Even worse!

049Muddy lane (640x480)

 

More primroses.

050Primroses (640x480)

And these are ‘weeds’ in our garden.  All lush green plants – the arrowhead leaves of Lords and Ladies, ivy, dog’s mercury and stinging nettles.

051Lords and ladies, ivy, dog's mercury, stinging nettle (640x480)

 

 

 

 

 

 

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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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