The Cemetery Bedecked

 Yesterday, before cricket practice - in itself an exercise in futility as the games will probably be rained off again - I took myself for a very gentle run to the cemetery.

It is beautiful, it is peak wildflower there, with the predominant colour being the blue of bluebell and forget me not growing right up to two hundred plus year old gravestones. Buttercup and meadow saxifrage; the last emergences of the season, are now present. and the wild garlic still pungently flowers in its ditch.

It's well worth a pause in my run, on a day that while warmer and dryer than what we'd had before, now had a strong wind that was keeping pollinators out of the air, although I did see a specked wood on the wing. 

Among the beauty, I remembered that this is the worst spring for butterflies I can remember. 

Si

All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 30.04.24

Wildlife at Work

 The warmer days at work this week have led to an explosion of sorts in our mini wildflower meadows I helped plant several years ago, with birds foot trefoil now adding to the yellow carpet of buttercups. Many other cultivated plants that attract pollinators such as rock cranesbill have also come into flower, and in their train, we have a lot of insect life now making itself known.

This is good news for the nesting birds on campus, such as our pair of linnets, and evidently goldfinches as I saw a juvenile the other day. 

I've got some photographs I took the other day, where luck smiled on me for a change quality wise in the good light.

Si

All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 20.05.22

The Golden Fields of Farndon

 It was a lovely early evening yesterday, so having done a circuit of the park earlier on where I failed to photograph banded demoiselles, I took myself off to Farndon to look at Cottage Lane nature reserve.

I noticed another decent sized swift colony at the back entrance to the village, but poppies aren't growing en masse in the field any more. Indeed with all the recent building works, poppies aren't growing en masse any more anywhere around here. 

I went around the Farndon Ponds, where all was quiet on the water but lots of birdsong in the trees, and after a walk through a wood found myself on Cottage Lane.

You may remember the last time I went there, there were a few snake's head fritillaries among the clumps of lady's smock. Now it is dominated by buttercups, with ragged robin thrown in. 

I was on the look out for dragonflies here, but maybe still a little early. 

Then I made my way toward the river, and found what I hoped for. The pastures next to the river were just yellow with buttercups, not perhaps as dazzling a yellow as that you get with oilseed rape, but still vivid and beautiful. Lots of moths were among the stems, flushed by my stomping feet. 

The golden fields, that I always love to see.

Si

All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 17.05.22

The Snake and the Dragonfly

 I've got a lot of steps in this weekend, Friday saw my bimbling out to Winthorpe Lake of which more later - there wasn't a lot to see to be honest - and today took me out to Hawton and Farndon, two nearby villages which are both very attractive.

The house at valrerian corner is a highlight for me at Hawton, although there were no hummingbird hawk moths as I've sometimes seen here, and the pastures around Farndon are painted yellow with buttercups at the moment.

But today saw a couple of really exciting firsts for me.

The first came on the road halfway between Hawton and Farndon. Whenever I cross a stream of water, I always take a look down on the off chance of seeing a fish, or perhaps a little egret on the hunt, but when I looked down into a small beck, I saw stunned to see a sinuous black shape swimming along.

For a split second I thought it might be an eel, then spotted a head with a collar of gold around the neck. It was of course a grass snake, swimming along happy as larry before slithering out when it came across a branch in the water.

I was too shocked to even reach for my phone to take a picture.

It's the first snake I've ever seen in the wild.

I know we get grass snakes in the area, I've seen photos, but never thought I'd be lucky enough to see one myself. What a find!

Slightly less dramatically but no less interesting, I encountered a 4 spotted chaser dragonfly on a tree near Fanrdon Ponds. This was my first dragonfly of the year, and the first of this species I've managed to photograph, although it took about 20 attempts to get one in focus!

All in all, 20,000 very worthwhile steps today!

All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 31.05.21