Norman Churches and Grinding Cricket

Today, on the hottest day of the year, and frankly all of last year as well, found myself playing cricket at the pleasant setting of Colston Basset's cricket ground, on the edge of the Vale of Belvoir. Apparently this village, as well as Cropwell Bishop nearby, are famous for cheese, although the only thing that was cheesy anywhere near us was my safely unused bowling.

Initially we had met at the Kelham Road ground, where I was delighted to find that a great tit had nested in a fencepost by the main gate. The bird itself wasn't terribly pleased however; when I tried to peer into the nest it hissed at me! Twice! Can't say I blame it.

After driving over to the match, the skipper lost the toss and condemned us to 40 overs of scalding hot fielding. Luckily I was on hand to take a scalding hot catch - so I'm telling everyone who wasn't actually at the game - and some talented youngsters did our bowling for us while I patrolled the covers like Jonty Rhodes on barbiturates. Unlike Belvoir last weekend, there weren't many birds to be seen, but plenty of flirtatious pairs of orange tip and small tortoiseshells fluttered by, and yellow brimstones flew the boundary edge.

We did well to keep our opponents to 225 odd, and then went out to bat against the most insanely accurate bowling attack I've ever faced. Some insanity made our skipper put me in at the nosebleed inducing position of 3 in the batting order, and after getting involved in a run out where the guy the other end wouldn't have got in even if he was in a Tardis, I settled down to keeping the ball out with my legs and testicles. And bat, very occasionally.

I was out LBW again. For 3 this time, after what seemed like batting for 6 hours. Tell me what these wooden things they give us to hit the ball with are will you?

After getting out, and exchanging light disagreement with my run out partner, I had time to explore the ground. It was dominated to the west by an intriguing ruined Norman church, where some truly old graves were patrolled by tawny mining bees, and ground ivy enjoyed the moist conditions at the base of the walls, snuggled under spider's webs.

We lost by about 130 in the end, against a much better side. But we are an improving club, and the results will me come. But me. I HELD A CATCH!

Si

All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 08.05.16

Great tit nest

Grinding it out

Super accurate bowler, this chap

Pavilion and our fans

Sadly, not going so well

Sun in the trees

Up at the church

The tower

Cowslip grave

The open nave

Gothic setting

Across the graveyard

Snug ground ivy

The Rescue

Another walk this evening, and now the house martins have arrived back at their nest site near the Magnus School, circling the trees by the hockey pitch where the insects fly. Soon they will be nesting under the eaves of the houses opposite, one of the few sites they have left in a town where they once dominated the town centre in summer.

Even more swifts are around. It looks as though it may be a good summer for them here. How amazing to spend virtually your entire life in flight. The duller evening didn't stop them, indeed they are probably still up there now, circling ever in the warm night.

Feeling like the narrator in "War of the Worlds" when he finds The Parson, I came upon a dead bee lying on the pavement. I thought it was dead, but as I looked down, its legs trembled. It was alive!

I had no sugary water to hand, and decided to carry it to a flower to drop it on so it might have a chance to regain strength by nectaring. However the bee in question, a red tailed bumble queen, was enjoying the warmth of my hand so much she had no wish to get off, and I ended up carrying her 200 metres along Millgate until I found a garden full of flowers and was able to pop her off onto a wall next to them.

I imagine she won't survive, but I did try.

It is important to make friends.

Si

All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 06.05.16

Ghost Trees in the Dusk

I had a stroll out tonight to vote, in a slightly hazy dusk.

There's nothing interesting to vote for here, no mayor, councillors or assemblies. Just the PCC, but even after struggling to locate my polling card amid a sea of junk mail - I failed - I felt it was my duty to exercise a right an awful lot of people don't have.

Besides, I take a great deal of pleasure in NOT voting for one particular party. After I'd scrawled my cross on the paper, using those great thick pencils you only find in polling booths, I trotted back to the little gardens not far from home with a great deal of satisfaction.

It was obviously a slow night, voting wise; the two attendants nearly fainted when I walked in.

Great trees have spouted blossom on the park. In the low light, they looked ghostly. Swifts flew above, getting lower, screaming more and more.

Si

All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 05.05.16

The Swifts are Screaming Again

Last night, I saw my first swift of the year, fluttering in circles above my home with those characteristic sharp, stiff wing beats. I wondered if it was one of "our" swifts, or a migrant on his way home somewhere else.

Tonight, sad to have spent a glorious day working - typical - I got home and inhaled my meal rather than ate it, so keen was I to get out again quickly, to change out of my awful work clothes and get out in the evening sun.

It really was a beautiful evening, and upon the cirrus streaked blue sky more swifts had arrived, circling their local nest sites of which there are three near me, in groups of three or four. Soon there will be more, and indeed across town by Millgate where they must also have a home, there were perhaps 8 on the go. They were staying high, but already they were being very noisy, their screams carrying easily to the ground below as the sun gave the western horizon a vivid blush.

Other good birds were about too, a sparrowhawk flap-flap-gliding above the hospital on its way east; a kestrel scattering starlings on Millgate. But I was also glad to see a rather less spectacular song thrush feeding with a group of blackbirds on a lawn. You really don't see so many of them these days.

Best of all however, was just the feeling of walking on a warm sunny evening again. It's been a long time.

Si

All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 04.05.16

Catholic church in the sunset

Leggy old beast

The Queen's Sconce

River Devon

Grazing horses

Along the river, where the sand martins are flying

Hairy Feet and Flutterers

I seem to have run out of energy at the end of my time off work, yesterday I didn't run, and today I didn't either, just totally tired out. But both days I have at least had reasonable walks through the park and around town, and today's bright conditions made it a rather more rewarding one, photographically.

It wasn't a day for bird shots though, much as they sang, the increasingly leafy canopy in the old oak wood is making it harder to spot our avian friends, apart from the willow warbler that perched in the hedgerow next to me, serenaded me with a blast of song, and then fluttered off as I reached for my camera.

No, the warmer and brighter conditions meant that there were lots of insects in the air, nectaring off the next wave of spring flowers that have emerged. Butterflies. Bees. Hoverflies. It was a macro shot day in other words, and I think I've got some ok results.

Enjoy!

Si

All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 03.05.16

Not sure if this is a honey bee or not; the hairs on the thorax were very russet looking.

Can't remember!

Hairy footed flower bee female

Male hairy foot. Note the white facial hairs

Marsh marigold

Sunbathing peacock

Wings folded

Another one on the riverbank

White campion?

Newark Under Siege Again

Today the weather has been mild, but very wet, and a visit to the old wood provided much in the way of birdsong, but not much in the way of actual birds to photograph in the terrible flat grey light. I heard the blackcap rather than saw it, but a pair of chiff chaffs flitted around the oaks for a long while, being irritatingly impossible to photograph.

Chiff chaffs are the arch avian ventriloquists; their song is almost impossible to pair up with a bird visually. They seem to be able to throw it from tree to tree, leaving the observer twisting their neck like an owl trying to work out where the little warbler is.

How other photographers get great shots of them I have no idea. I suspect glue on the branches.

This bank holiday weekend we've had all the Civil War re-enactors in town, celebrating, if that's the right word, the third siege of Newark that happened 370 years ago. Newark has always been proud if its position in history, with our pubs like "The Royalist", "The Cavalier" and "The Prince Rupert" and our former BMX team, the Newark Cavaliers. Why we celebrate an institution that oppressed the working man and fought against democracy so much, I have no idea, but it's an odd little town.

So, Newark Castle grounds were full of little tents filled with costumed folk doing various 17th century things; sewing, blacksmithing, armouring, while others pretended to be sat in a pub, and a group of luxuriously befeathered Cavaliers sat having a rather posher dinner in another tent.

Sadly I missed the parades, and there's been no mock battle with ear shattering cannon fire to enjoy. But, it's always nice to see folk out there doing something different.

Si

All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 02.05.16

Out of Tune Birds

As you know I'm trying to make myself rather more adept at identifying bird calls.

These are slow beginnings. The laser fight peeeows of dunnocks I think I'm getting, also the angry chirps of a chaffinch. But the the song that is intriguing me most at the moment is that of the blackcap.

It's a sweet fluting song indeed, but at the beginning the bird always sounds like it is slightly out of tune, and has to "warm up" before getting its vocals sorted out. I think this impression is solidified by the fact that this warbler has a very aspirated quality to its song - actually like someone blowing into a flute - and it's almost as if the bird has missed the mouthpiece a little bit when it begins.

I got another great view of a male today in the Sconce Old Oak Wood - I'm sure a pair are nesting somewhere near where the bark path forks in two - and although he didn't sing for me while I was watching, a subsequent fusillade of song from a willow tree reinforced the off key nature of the initial phrasing of the song.

Didn't manage to get a photograph sadly, they don't settle for long, but there were some other birds about at the park today.

Hope you all enjoyed the day.

Si

All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 01.05.16