• About my Blog
  • GDPR (General Data Protection Regulations) and This Site
  • My Life in a Suffolk Lane

A Suffolk Lane

~ A diary of my life in rural north Suffolk.

A Suffolk Lane

Tag Archives: St Mark’s fly

This and That – Part 2

16 Thu Jun 2016

Posted by Clare Pooley in Gardening, Insects, music, plants, Rural Diary, trees

≈ 44 Comments

Tags

Bee, blossom, cow parsley, Crabapples, dandelion, field maple, flowers, gardens, ground-ivy, Hawthorn, horse chestnut, Hoverfly, insects, jonquils, Lady's Smock, Maytime, miniature Tulip, narcissus, pasque flower, Pear, pieris, saxifrage, shrubs, St Mark's fly, Suffolk, trees, wild cherry

This post includes the better photos I took at home during the first half of May.

P1000073Miniature Tulip

I have a few miniature scented Tulips. I have no idea what they are called or even when I got them though I think they are about 18 years old. I had a selection of red, orange and yellow ones but all that’s left are the red ones.

P1000071Jonquils-001

These jonquils are tiny and the flowers bob about on their narrow stems like yellow butterflies. Each flower is only about 2 inches across.

P1000074Pasque flower

The Pasque flowers (Pulsatilla vulgaris ‘Alba’ )in my garden came out well after Easter this year. Not only was Easter early but the weather was cold and the flowers sensibly stayed as buds until the time was right.

P1000075Saxifrage

I love this pretty pink Saxifrage!

P1000077Wild cherry

Wild Cherry blossom (Prunus avium) with a visiting bee

P1000076Wild cherry

Wild Cherry blossom. I like the green-bronze colour of the new leaves.

P1000080Narcissus

Pale yellow double Narcissus

P1000081Pear

Pear ‘Concorde’ blossom.  This pear is supposed to be a dessert pear but by the time it is soft enough to eat it is already rotting in the centre.  Perhaps our climate isn’t suitable for it?  We harvest the pears before they have started to soften and we cook them or we prepare them for the freezer.

P1000082Pear

Pear blossom with a visiting Hoverfly.  The lichen is doing quite well too with its orange fruiting bodies.

P1000096St Mark's flies-001

These are St. Mark’s-flies (Bibio marci) doing what flies do in the spring. The female is the upper fly and she has smoky-grey wings and a small head. The lower fly is the male and he has silvery wings and a larger head. Both sexes have spines on their front legs at the tip of the tibia. You can just see this on the female’s front leg. These flies fly weakly and slowly and dangle their legs as though the effort of flying is almost too much for them. They are called St. Mark’s-flies because they usually appear on or around St. Mark’s day which is April 25th.  This photo was taken on 2nd May – it was a cold spring!

P1000104Lady's smock

Lady’s-smock or Cuckooflower (Cardamine pratensis) – a member of the cabbage family

P1000106Pieris

New leaves on my variegated Pieris ‘Forest Flame’

P1000182Crabapple s. blossom

Crabapple species blossom. Standing under this weeping tree I am almost over-powered by the scent of roses and the buzzing of bees.

P1000183Bluebells

These are the English Bluebells (Hyacinthoides non-scripta) I am trying to establish next to the weeping crabapple. I have put canes alongside them to remind us not to mow them until the seeds have set and the leaves have died. I am also hoping that the canes will stop the deer from trampling the plants.

P1000185Dandelion

A beautiful Common Dandelion ‘clock’ (Taraxacum officinale agg.)

P1000187Crabapple 'Evereste' blossom

Crabapple ‘Evereste’ blossom

P1000189Crabapple 'Harry Baker' blossom

Crabapple ‘Harry Baker’ blossom

P1000191Ground ivy

Ground-ivy (Glechoma hederacea)

P1000195Horse chestnut

The Horse-chestnut tree (Aesculus hippocastanum) with its flower ‘candles’

P1000197Field maple

Field Maple flowers (Acer campastre)

P1000199Hawthorn

Common Hawthorn flower buds (Crataegus monogyna)

P1000201Cow parsley

Cow Parsley (Anthriscus sylvestris) (or as it is called here in Suffolk, Sheep’s Parsley) with a fly.  I am very fond of Cow Parsley and the sight of masses of it in flower along the lanes makes me happy.

Here is another song that features a wonderful trombone solo and a fantastic brass riff too!  This is a very old recording and it is also an uncommon arrangement for this song.

Thanks for visiting!

Share this:

  • Twitter
  • Reddit
  • Pinterest
  • Facebook
  • Email
  • Tumblr
  • Print
  • Pocket
  • LinkedIn

Like this:

Like Loading...

A Walking Week Part One

05 Mon May 2014

Posted by Clare Pooley in domestic animals, fish, Insects, plants, Rural Diary, trees, Uncategorized, walking, wild birds

≈ 7 Comments

Tags

Adrian Bell, bird-scarer cannon, Blue Tit, buttercup, comfrey, cow parsley, cows, cut-leaved crane's-bill, daisy, fairy ring, field maple, fish, Germander Speedwell, goosegrass, great yellow-cress, greater spotted woodpecker, Greater Stitchwort, greefinch, Hawthorn, Herb-Robert, Lords and Ladies, May, orange-tip butterfly, perch, pineapple weed, pond, red campion, ribwort, sheep, St Mark's fly, stinging nettle, wedding ring, wild rose

I have managed to do a little walking this week and have enjoyed it very much.  Monday and Tuesday’s walking was mainly round the shops so doesn’t count as enjoyable walking.  For some stupid reason I mistook the time of E’s hair appointment and we arrived in Halesworth an hour early on Monday.  E kindly said she was happy to wait for an hour at the hairdressers but I thought she might go mad with boredom so we did the supermarket shopping and then I got more petrol for the car.  She then went for her hair appointment and while she was there I called in at the jewellers to see if anything can be done to my wedding ring to stop it cutting into my finger.  Twenty years ago we hadn’t thought that my ring would wear away so quickly.  Apparently, we chose the wrong ring – a 9 carat D-profile ring – and should have had a round-profile ring and something of a better quality.  Well, too late now!  This is my wedding ring, bought for me by my husband and blessed at our Marriage Blessing Service.  We weren’t able to be married in church as we had both been married before, but we had a beautiful Blessing Service after our Registry Office wedding.  The jeweller said either we could buy a new ring or have my one built up which would cost the same as a new ring.  A dilemma which we are still thinking about.

Both Monday and Tuesday were mainly cloudy days and no good for drying washing outside so I decorated the inside of the house with wet clothes.  I had more shopping to do in Bungay so drove there on Tuesday afternoon and I made my purchases.  On the way home I got stuck in a traffic jam!  This is quite out of the ordinary, living where we live.  The vehicle in front of me was a supermarket delivery van and not much holds them up usually!  I couldn’t see what the problem was as these vans are quite wide, so I edged round a bit and saw….

Image   Image

The cows took their time to leave their field and amble down the road to the farmyard.  The stockman had a busy time trying to get the cows out of people’s gardens where there were lots of interesting plants and trees to eat.  I took the photos with my phone and then enlarged the pictures so the quality isn’t that good.

E asked if we could watch a DVD together during the evening which I thought would be nice but no-one thought to tell my eyes to watch too.  As soon as I sat down they became extremely heavy and so I dozed most of the way through the film to the disapproval of my daughter.  This is not the first time I have done this.

Wednesday is ‘shopping with mother’ day which went very well as Mum was on top form and we had a real laugh together.  The weather on Wednesday was lovely too – a hazy start and then lots of sunshine.  When I had had some lunch at home I decided to walk down the lane to take advantage of the bright weather and to see what was to be seen.

Image

Lots of stinging nettles and goosegrass.  Goosegrass is a relative of coffee and quinine and has many medicinal uses.  At one time the seeds were roasted and used as a coffee substitute and apparently the young shoots are edible and can be cooked in soups as a vegetable.  All I know about it is that if I touch it, it brings me out in a rash!  The seeds are hooked and stick to hair and clothes – hence the plant’s other name of Cleavers.

Stinging Nettles are very useful, if painful plants too.  They can be used for making cloth, food and medicine.  My plant book says that the Roman belief that stinging nettles cured rheumatism still persists in Britain.  I can say that there is some truth in this as when I am stung on my hands my rheumatic joints there become less painful.  I can’t say I would care to roll about in them unclothed as some people recommend!

Image

These are Hawthorn flowers – May blossom.  ‘Ne’er cast a clout til May be out’ – either don’t leave off your winter clothes until the end of the month of May, or, don’t leave off your winter clothes until the May blossom is on the trees.

Image

This is the wild rose and already there are large flower buds as you can see.  This is early, as the rose usually flowers at the end of May and into June.

Image

A fine crop of old equipment and other rubbish in this field.  At the beginning of Adrian Bell’s book ‘Corduroy’ he talks of the Suffolk farmers’ habit of leaving implements in corners of fields or yards covered in nettles until they are needed for some particular function.  They are then returned ‘to some out-of-the-way corner, to be a sleeping Gulliver for the grass again’.

Image

These are the boys – male sheep, tups.  A bit stinky – sleeping and snoring in the sun.  Wandering about having something to eat now and then – not a care in the world.

Image

 

Common comfrey.  In medieval times the roots of this plant were dug up in the spring and grated to produce a sludge which was packed round broken limbs.  It hardened to a consistency similar to that of Plaster of Paris.

Image

A view over the fields.

Image

Cut-leaved Crane’s-bill.

Image

Great Yellow-cress.

Image

The lane.

Image

Herb-Robert.  In the Middle Ages they believed that a plant showed how it could be used through its colour or shape – the doctrine of signatures.  This plant turns a fiery red in autumn so they thought it should be used in the treatment of blood disorders.  It has a strange odour and in some places it is known as ‘Stinking Bob’.

Image

Daisies.

Image

Daisies and Germander Speedwell.

Image

Greater Stitchwort.

Image

A Buttercup.

Image

Pineapple Weed.

Image

A female orange-tip butterfly.  Note the lovely green-marbled underwing.

Image

The signpost at the end of our lane.

Image

A male orange-tip butterfly.  I have been trying for over a week to photograph these fast flying butterflies!

Image

Lords and Ladies.  This is specially for Heather!  At last these strange plants are flowering here.  I have some in my garden but they are hidden by tall grass and difficult to photograph.

Image

Cow and calves.

Image

This is the pond at the side of the lane.  I’m not sure what the fish are – perhaps perch? – but we have the same fish in our big pond.

Image

The pond next to the lane.

Image

Field maple leaves and flowers.

Image

A St Mark’s fly.  They usually appear about the same time of year as the Feast of St Mark – 25th April.

R and I went out for a walk across the fields when he returned home from his trip to Gloucestershire that evening.

Image

Red Campion and cow-parsley growing at the end of our lane.

Image

A Red Campion flower.

Image

Ribwort flowers – Turkish Caps,

Image

A ‘fairy ring’ caused by toadstools.

Image

A bird-scarer cannon.

Image

More stitchwort.

Image

St Peter’s Washes.

I’ll end with some photos of birds seen in my garden during the past week.

Image

A female Greater-Spotted Woodpecker.

Image

A bluetit.

Image

Male and female Greenfinches

Share this:

  • Twitter
  • Reddit
  • Pinterest
  • Facebook
  • Email
  • Tumblr
  • Print
  • Pocket
  • LinkedIn

Like this:

Like Loading...
Follow A Suffolk Lane on WordPress.com

Enter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 658 other followers

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!

My Posts

Mar 2021
M T W T F S S
1234567
891011121314
15161718192021
22232425262728
293031  
« Feb    

Pages

  • About my Blog
  • GDPR (General Data Protection Regulations) and This Site
  • My Life in a Suffolk Lane

Archives

Blogs I Follow

Posts I Like

amphibians art Arts and Crafts churches cooking Days out domestic animals family fish Folk Traditions Gardening Historic Buildings holidays Insects Landscaping literature music Norwich plants poetry Rural Diary seashore theatre trees Uncategorized walking weather wild animals wild birds wild flowers

Tags

architecture autumn beach berries birds blackbird blackthorn butterfly church clouds common knapweed cow parsley crocus daffodils Diary dogwood family field maple flowers fungus garden gardening geese greylags ground-ivy Halesworth Hawthorn heather holiday Holy Week horse chestnut Hoverfly insects ivy Lake District Lent lesser celandine lichen Lords and Ladies Mallard mallards Minsmere moorhen moss music Norfolk Norwich Peak District pheasant plants pond ponds primrose primroses Rain rooks Rumburgh Rumburgh Church sheep Sheffield snow snowdrops spring Suffolk Suffolk Wildlife Trust sunset the Beck trees viburnum bodnantense walking weather wild cherry wild flowers winter-flowering honeysuckle witch-hazel

Meta

  • Register
  • Log in
  • Entries feed
  • Comments feed
  • WordPress.com

Goodreads

Blog at WordPress.com.

Writer Side UP!

Waking the Writer Side...and keeping it "Up!"

Meggie's Adventures

Travel, thank you notes and other stories

amusicalifeonplanetearth

Music and the Thoughts It Can Inspire

lovefoundation.co.uk

Traveling Tortuga

Simply Living Well

Pakenham Water Mill

Historic watermill in the beautiful Suffolk countryside

Take It Easy

Retired, not expired: words from the after(work)life. And music. Lots of music!

cindyknoke.wordpress.com/

Cindy Knoke

Diary Of A Church of England Vicar's Wife

Public Rights of Way Explorer

PROW Explorer

thanksfortheadventureorg.wordpress.com/

The Beat Goes On

#TBGO

PLESZAK

Frank Pleszak's Blogs

John Bainbridge Writer

Indie Writer and Publisher

roughwighting

Life in a flash - a weekly writing blog

Walking the Old Ways

Rambling in the British Countryside

Shiny New Books

What to Read Next and Why

A Voice from Iran

Storytelling, short stories, fable, folk tales,...

CapKane

thoughts on social realities

SkyeEnt

Jottings from Skye

jodie richelle

embracing my inner homemaker

Skizzenbuch/Blog

Just another WordPress.com weblog

Author Kevin Cooper

Life, Love, Tears & Laughter: Then, Now & Hereafter.

Have Bag, Will Travel

The Call of the Pen

Flash Fiction, Book Reviews, Devotionals and other things.

Book Jotter

Reviews, news, features and all things books for passionate readers

John's Postcards

STADTAUGE

Ailish Sinclair

Stories and photos from Scotland

Art in Nature

The ‘Beauty of the Moment’

The Strawberry Post

Here to Entertain, Educate & Inspire!

You dream, I photographe it !

Smile! You’re in Barnier World......

theinfill

the things that come to hand

Dr. Mary Ann Niemczura

Author of "A Past Worth Telling"

Provincial Woman

Life in Mud Spattered Boots

Creative Country Life

The Pink Wheelbarrow

The Mindful Gardener

The sensory pleasures and earthy delights of gardening.

Luanne Castle's Writer Site

Memoir, poetry, & writing theory

The Family Kalamazoo

A genealogical site devoted to the history of the DeKorn and Zuidweg families of Kalamazoo and the Mulder family of Caledonia

everythingchild

The Book Owl

Canberra's Green Spaces

people, places and green spaces in Canberra

Schnippelboy

Ein Tagebuch unserer Alltagsküche-Leicht zum Nachkochen

Paul Harley Photographer

WALKS WITH PUMPKIN

bowlandclimber

Walks and climbs

M T McGuire Authorholic

Humorous fantasy fiction author... the books are quite funny too... seeking an agent, a publisher and my fortune.

Tails from a Norfolk cottage

Moments from a Norfolk Country Cottage. The furred & feathered & the worn and weathered. A Druid Herbalist with a Passion for Cats, Vintage, Dogs, Interiors, Nature, Hens, Organic Veggie Food, Plants & Trees & a Kinship with The Earth.

Woodland Wild flowers

Of the Wye valley and beyond.

Cancel

 
Loading Comments...
Comment
    ×
    loading Cancel
    Post was not sent - check your email addresses!
    Email check failed, please try again
    Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email.
    Privacy & Cookies: This site uses cookies. By continuing to use this website, you agree to their use.
    To find out more, including how to control cookies, see here: Cookie Policy
    %d bloggers like this: