Catch-up

Rampton woods & meadows, 25th May 2019, 3.30pm, slight breeze, partial cloud, warm 21 degrees

For various reasons, a new grand-daughter being the nicest, I haven't been out around our local woods and meadow for a good few weeks and wow it has turned green!

We popped out this afternoon for a quick walk and the meadow looked lovely with lots of different grasses. As the breeze caught the heads the colours changed from green to brown, orange and red which, along the vivid yellow of the buttercups and the cerise common vetch against the blue sky, made for a beautiful natural canvas.

Rampton meadow

The woodland was a tangle of green and white with the initial flush of cow parsley I saw a few weeks ago now starting to seed and become swamped with clumps of sticky weed. Clear tracks through the mass of stems giving away wildlife corridors.

Some tiny moths and butterflies flew across from one small sun spot to another, unidentifiable without a close up view or photo but a faded peacock - maybe from last year - rested on the path.

We could hear the birds - chiffchaff, blackbird, tits and thrushes but the canopy above our heads is now too thick to make them out and only two young squirrels showed on the low branches of the big oaks half way into the wood. We have also seen a squirrel in the garden this week. They have been over in the garden beyond ours over the winter but this was a fairly young one who has found our peanut feeder.

Common vetch

Also in the garden this week we have had squabbling starlings both parents and juveniles and sparrows feeding their flapping youngsters. I also watched a female blackbird with a large slug on the grass. It spent some time wiping it and then her beak backwards and forwards on the grass - presumably to get rid of the slime - before finally pecking it into submission and carrying it off.

The Beast From the East Brings Snow and Visitors

It's been a while hasn't it! I've been busy with building a new business whilst still working, grandma duties and general life! But I've still been walking and definitely still been watching nature go through her seasonal manoeuvres. One curve ball was thrown at us last week when an icy blast of weather came our way bringing windchill and snow. In Cambridgeshire we got off very lightly with a few centimetres of snow on and off for a few days whilst other areas had drifts of 10 and even 20 feet.

Weather watchers soon nicknamed this front The Beast From the East although towards the end of the week it had also combined with a European storm called Emma - much less fierce sounding but the one that hit us with the most snow.

One advantage of the freezing temperatures and the ground being covered was some new visitors to the gardens. Photos appeared everywhere of people seeing fieldfares and redwings for the first time. And where the little birds feed the bigger birds follow with sparrow hawks and buzzards being seen brazenly sitting on fences and sheds.

I made a point of putting out more food each day, topping it up and keeping the water from freezing.

Watching the birds it was interesting to see their behaviour change. The robin who would normally see off any other robin reserved its energy - at one point we had three in the garden - the blackbirds stopped chasing each other for a few days too. But bring in a few outsiders and the dynamics changed again. The robin took exception to a male blackcap who appeared one afternoon, the jackdaws saw off a stray gull and the blackbirds and a fieldfare fought it out over an apple - the fieldfare arrived on the second day of snow and having found some apple stood guard over it for the next few days.

As the snow eventually thawed and the visitors disappeared back to the woods and the fields the garden became calm again and the regular birds went back to the job in hand - spring!

Perseid Meteor Shower

Every August the Earth passes through the debris of the comet Swift-Tuttle and we can see the resulting meteor shower. These 'shooting stars' peaked Saturday night so I set up the camera in the garden and spent a few hours dodging the clouds and hoping to catch a meteor as it flashed past. It was a good night for them, they didn't peak until after midnight but between 10-11pm I saw quite a few, some faint wisps but a couple of good tailed streaks across the sky. Beautiful.

30 Days Wild - Day 27 - Snail Trail

And then the rain came!  After our heatwave of last week where I couldn't move for sweating today the drips are coming from the skies!

Some people may not enjoy the rain but my garden is crying out for it! My water butt is on empty and the grass is curling at the edges. So welcome the rain! It is forecast to continue for a couple of days, which it needs to soak through - the initial downpours just running off the hard earth.

Today in the office, we saw the lightning light up the dark oppressive sky and we jumped as the crack of thunder came immediately behind. The gutter leaked under the deluge with a waterfall outside the door.

Then the snails came out. Outside one of the office windows the foliage has not been cut back for a while and is covering the glass. Three snails made their way across the windowsill to the tender shoots on the other side. My 30 Days Wild act for today was to encourage my colleagues to put down their pens and stop looking at their screens for a few minutes and come to the window to see the snails. They may have thought I was mad but they came and we watched and we chatted about the rain and the snails and how not a ripple could be seen as they slid over the glass.

A nature break without leaving the office.

30 Days Wild - Day 22 - Late night gazing

I nearly had to admit defeat for Day 22 of 30 Days Wild! It had been a busy day at work then out for a meal with some friends and not a wild thing in sight! But as I got ready for bed just before midnight I looked out of the window and the clouds had parted revealing a starry sky.

I love looking at the stars at night - it's mind blowing at times contemplating our little existence in the grand scheme of the universe. It hurts my head thinking about it!

Summer skies are often not dark enough to see things clearly although it is the best time of year to see the Milky Way if you can find a dark spot. Last night though I could see Saturn in the south and the W of Cassiopeia clearly towards the North alongside the easy to spot Ursa Major 'The Plough',

The photos below are from my archive but I went to bed promising myself I would get back into star gazing!

30 Days Wild - Day 21 - Summer Solstice & The Longest Birthday

Summer solstice.
First day of summer.
Longest Day.
My birthday!

One of my 'to dos' on Pinterest is to see the sunrise on my birthday on the solstice at Stonehenge but in the meantime and for 30 Days Wild I made a point of getting up at 4am to watch the sunrise.  I have learnt a few things already this morning:

The times given for sunrises on my weather app can strangely change overnight!
The sun does not rise in the east at this time of year - more north east!
There is a tree directly at north-east from my house!
Summer solstice times given for my town on various websites do not seem to match!
The birds are incredibly loud at 4.30am!
Today will be 16 hours and 38 minutes long.
Solstice comes from the Latin for sun (sol) and stand still (sistere).
I should have got dressed and gone out for a walk for a better view and experience.
The experience was still amazing. Quiet. Peaceful. Well worth getting up.
I'm going to be sooooo tired this afternoon!

30 Days Wild - Day 19 - Evening Viewing

As the heat is still rising and the coolest place is my office I haven't even been out for my regular lunchtime walk, or been inclined to go outdoors at all. However, it looked like it might be a nice sunset and by 9pm it was comfortable enough to sit in the garden, so I took my camera and phone out and waited for the sky to colour up for my 30 Days Wild act.

While I was waiting I thought I'd tick off another random act of wildness and check out some webcams and as it was for 30 Days I looked up the Wildlife Trust to see what they had.

How great it is to be able to turn on and watch wildlife that was previously unaccessible. How many people just a few years ago could say they had seen inside a Peregrine nest? Amazing privilege.

Osprey nest at Rutland Water with two chicks.

A barn owl nest at Blue House Farm nature reserve in Essex.

Peregrines on Buckinghamshire County Council's County Hall in Aylesbury.

And the sunset? By now the sky had become streaked with clouds and vapour trails and a strip of orange hung on the horizon. Not a spectacular sunset in the end but such a pretty sky.

30 Days Wild - Day 18 - It's A Bug's Life

Hot! Hot! Hot! I really wanted to get out for a walk this morning and find some butterflies but even early it was too warm and sticky for me so, as we are busy this afternoon, once again I took the camera out in the garden for 30 Days Wild.

All was still amongst the plants except the odd movement of tiny wings. The birds were oddly quiet too as I topped up the water in the bird bowl and the bee watering station. Then I sat under the umbrella's shade with my early morning coffee and silently wished my dad a Happy Fathers Day.

The deep purple salvias and lavender I bought at the garden centre a few weeks ago had come into flower and were welcoming their pollen hunting visitors.

No sound of lawn mowers, no smell of bar-be-ques but they will surely come later. Just me, the insects and my memories.

30 Days Wild - Day 6 - British Weather

I have a confession. I love the British weather! The wind, rain, sunshine, showers, snow, hail, dry, frost and stormy forecasts all make for interesting landscapes and let's face it conversation! Although at the time I may moan, a bit, about endless soggy days or the sweatiness of a mini-heatwave, I find it exciting but also comforting that the seasons arrive more or less as expected, every three months, every year. Yes our climate is definitely changing but we do still have marked differences as the year goes by.
(Note: as I write this Springwatch is on and saying almost the exact same thing! 😃)



I spent most of today holed up in the office at work, vaguely aware of the rain outside and wondering what my 30 Day Wild challenge would be. Once at home I was standing at the window looking at my battered garden  (it looked so lovely yesterday!) when I noticed the sky changing and I decided to spend half an hour just watching, and photographing, the weather.

The clouds took on edgy forms and the sky turned quickly from lavender grey to blue black across from west to east while the wind grew wilder, bending the willow and its silver birch neighbours. I wondered about the nests being thrown around, hoped their contents would be safe. The peony heads, weighted down with rainwater bruised blooms, almost brushed the lawn and the wayward bough of black elder broke away from its garden twine harness. Then the rain sliced across the view, dashes at forty five degrees.

Within minutes blue holes appeared to the west, sunshine forced its way through splitting the skyline into light and dark. And then, as I knew it would, opposite the sunlight, one arc of colour then another appeared. A double rainbow, the first as vivid as I have seen for a long while, brightened further by the now deepest gunmetal backdrop.

The British weather:  Changeable? Definitely. Boring? Never.

A change of scene

We spent last week in North Devon on a family break. We stayed in Croyde, a special place our family in one form or an other have visited for over 40 years. On one of the evenings the sky looked promising for a sunset so I grabbed the camera. The sun was tucked away behind Baggy Point but the tide was out so I could walk right down the beach to catch the light. The sea had left a landscape of salty puddles leading down to the edge of the water which made for some great interest in the shots.