Into the Badlands

The "Badlands" is the stretch of land between Clay Lane and Beacon Hill estate. It is in fact a privately owned area of ground that the public have always used for walking their dogs, and sledging down the steep path in snowy winters.

The family now seem to use it for grazing their cob horses as well now in summer.

It isn't bad at all, although kids seem to build campfires at night sometimes, but you know how I like to give names for everything! Buzzards and kestrels haunt the stands of trees, and in summer great thickets of thistle support a large population of butterflies.

This spring it has been carpeted in lesser celandine, and has looked particularly cheery. Sadly, that's now past its best, and no longer surrounds what I call the sacred tree - a tree with a lovely clearing under its boughs. It's still a lovely spot though.

Unlike the weather, which went from snow, to drizzle, to hail, then snow in the space of fifteen minutes.

Si

All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 26.04.16

Periwinkle looking good

Boggy Clay Lane

Entrance to the badlands

Stand of trees where raptors hang out

The Sacred Tree

The Clearing

Looking back

Pretty, but no idea

Looking down the sledging slope

Bad weather incoming

Beacon Hill Reserve woods

Kids BMX on these paths. Fair enough

Violet

Big red tailed queen on cowslip

Five minutes off a drenching

Bees and Butterflies on a Wild Day

The sun has been out today, but only for about 5 minutes in all. The rest of the time a heavily pregnant sky has been an evil grey, waiting to be induced before giving messy birth all over the adventurous runner or walker.

A constantly blowing freezing northerly has added to the misery of the day. At one point, my hands were purple with cold.

However, despite the bad conditions, spring wildlife was out there having a go. As I ran the Grange Road field route for 10km, the field of oilseed rape is just coming into bloom, luckily not the extent that its oily smell makes it hard to breathe, but just enough to give a touch of bright colour.

Examining the edge of the path along this field reveals a dry 20cm bank of mud, which judging by the number of holes in it, is operating as a tenement block for mining bees and other burrowing insects. Indeed male tawny mining bees were the only species feeding of the richly scented ceonothus hanging out over back garden fences along the route.

I wasn't expecting to see any butterflies out, but a small tortoiseshell was feeding off white nettle flowers, trembling slightly as it did so. For a hibernating butterfly, this one was in pretty good nick compared to some of the rather scruffy peacocks I've seen about.

Certainly in better nick than me after the rain started. Sheesh, it has been awful out there.

Si

All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 25.04.16

Forget me not grave

Ramson now out in the cemetery

Oilseed rape begins to bloom

Tawny mining bee

Love the antennae

A suitable home?

Gorgeous gorse

More gorse

Small tortoiseshell

More of this pink mystery which is everywhere this year

Meet Falco, next door's Polish golden labrador puppy

The Blackcap in the Park

This afternoon I got in a very sharp run - 9.5km at 10.6 km/h average, so I felt good about that, even though I'm above my prime running weight, and I'm still carrying the groin stiffness that I picked up playing cricket last year. Whether this means a two hour half marathon in August is possible or not I don't know, but I shall have that as a loose target.

I know that at my age, I'm not suddenly going to become the next Haile Gebreselassie.

This morning I made it to the park to see if I could earn my cup of tea with some good bird songs. Thanks to my youtube studies, I was tentatively able to identify a willow warbler's song in the old oak wood, but not some of the other calls I was hearing. Wasn't able to clap eyes on it however, the increasing amount of leaf cover in the trees is making it rather harder to spot birds high up.

Luckily, this didn't stop me from making a sighting  of a blackcap after it launched into song in a tree I was walking past. Indeed it wasn't alone, there was another bird higher up in the tree but I couldn't identify if this was a male or female.

I shall tell the warden to keep an eye out for a nesting pair, just on the off chance.

Sadly although the bird was easy to track through the trees by its singing, it was harder to get a good shot as it was always on the move, and had an irritating habit of hiding its head in the leaves. But I still got some shots, my first of this species, and you can still see it's a blackcap!

I hope.

Si

All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 24.04.16

And for those Seeking Satanic Supplies...

...I've found a fine purveyor of such artefacts. Behold!

Well, I suppose they might be meant for dogs, but I'd prefer to think that local witches and warlocks are buying these appetising looking items up and boiling them up in a cauldron in order to bring a plague of boils upon a man or woman who has wronged them.

Trachea!!! What you could do with these! The noisy neighbour could be rendered silent, or perhaps one touch of that mummified windpipe could silence a screeching baby on a bus. Curse a vain beauty with giant bunny ears, or burn Bambi's feet with incense in order to bring about inconsolable tears in an enemy.

As for the "hot dogs" I simply dread to think 1) what they are and 2) what they could be used for.

Bon apetit!

Si

All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 23.04.16

Get Carter!

I walking along Cartergate today, the street that marks the East side of the old Civil War town. You might therefore think it has a historic feel, and that the heritage people on the town council would look after it properly.

Well, not really...

For a start it doesn't have the same quality of building on it, no really impressive Tudor or Georgian builds, just stuff on a much smaller scale. Also, one end of the street has got some nasty modern slabs on it, well, this is inevitable, every town has these.

Like many towns, the issue is one of the sort of shops we have, and the sort of frontage design they have. It was never the poshest street in town, but you had a variety of shops, and the design wasn't too shocking.

Now we have two nail bars (and another directly round the corner), two e-cig shops, a bookies, a card shop, two charity shops, and various empty ones with forlorn looking "to let" signs bolted on. One of the nail bars in particular has a frontage so horrific it would be deemed "unclassy" by the ape creatures on TOWIE.

I suppose this is happening everywhere as the internet reduces the need for specialist shops, and faddy quick start businesses move in. But really, can you please make them conform to some kind of vaguely classy frontage design. A neon sign saying "Nails" really really isn't.

Si

All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 22.04.16

Looking North

First e-cig shop. Used to be a tiny book shop. Note empty shop on right.

We only have about 64 card shops in town

Gamblers.

The aforementioned atrocity

Bookies. We have loads of these as well now. They tend to go alongside deprivation.

They've gone a bit posh, there was a £3,000 watch in the window the other day

Another nail bar

Beacon of sanity

More e-cigs

Looking back down 100 metres of street.

A Sconce Park Miscellania

I've had two super days wandering around the pastures and woodland at Sconce and Devon Park here in Newark. Yesterday was warm, today was positively hot until a brisk wind got up and brought a haze to veil the sun somewhat. But today was far richer for birds.

I don't mean seeing them, oh it takes a far better and sharper birder than me to be able to do that! But yesterday, the old oak wood was strangely quiet, while today birdsong was erupting from high up in every tree and cascading down to the sun dappled ground.

The warden had told me to keep an eye out for a recently arrived willow warbler; well I had no chance with that one as its song is very similar to a chaffinch to an uneducated ear. The chiff chaff is obviously a lot easier, and indeed one blasted my ears at short range yesterday, although I could only get to photograph its backside.

Today, it was a rich fluting song that caught my ear, richer than a robin but not on the same level as a blackbird, the greatest of all our native singers! A few flutters in a willow tree in the old wood and I was able to identify the culprit, a soft grey blackcap!

The warden had only heard one, so I beat him with that little spot. Which happens, ooh, never, so I was quite pleased.

Si

All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 21.04.16

Hanging blue tit

Surveying the scene

Chiff chaff bum

Crow attacks buzzard!

Mallard family. Only the one chick, sadly.

Dunnock

Needs to sort those feathers out!

Sleep with one eye open

Small tortoiseshell

Lovely fresh speckled wood