Lazy Sunday

December 7, 2014December 7, 2014 / clivebaker5 / Leave a comment

Sometimes I feel the day is going to be one of those days when it is good to just sit and relax, watch an old film (Scrooge, 1951 with Alastair Sim and a very young George Cole) and as it had started raining when I walked the dog this morning this seemed like a good plan after I had got some jobs done.

Sometimes it is the simple things that we take for granted that gives us the most pleasure, like a winter’s day when you can stay inside watching an old film in front of the fire, but when I took the dog out for her walk before the evening had set in I noticed how the bare trees silhouetted against the now clear sky gave me a feeling of warmth even as the tempreature was dropping fast.

Can there be no better picture of the Winter Landscape in East Anglia than the bare trees against a Winter sky.

The Trees silhouetted againt the sky

Somtimes the bare trees that we pass everyday look so different against a winter sky.

Silver Birch trees

Winter at last

December 6, 2014 / clivebaker5 / Leave a comment

I have to say I think after days like today the East Anglian landscape is at it’s best, fantastic Sunrise this Morning.

Sun rises over the East Anglian Landscape

Followed by a crisp clear day, apart from Summer I think East Anglia looks it’s best when we have days like this.

Ely seems to be gearing up for Christmas with Christmas tunes played in the Market Square by local brass band

Christmas tunes in Ely’s market square

To shoppers catching the Sunshine on a frosty walk past the cathedral.

Shoppers walking past Ely Cathedral

I think there are never any words to say about a day like today, when you can show images and enjoy our fantastic Landscape.

Sculpture outside WWT Welney, Norfolk

And finally the Fenland Sunset.

Sunset over the washes Dec 2014

Waiting for arrivals

December 4, 2014December 4, 2014 / clivebaker5 / Leave a comment

It has got really cold now more like winter, the light and the chill as it has been damp and overcast all day, lunch time was brightened up by the sight of a pair of Kingfishers of all places in Cambridge outside the botanical gardens along Trumpington road, only a short walk from the City centre, it is amazing how this brightly coloured bird goes undetected as people walk, cycle or drive past.

We have often seen a kingfisher along here and sightings are more regular as the temperature starts to go down so to see two together along here was a bonus, is this a sign we are about to get a spell of true Winter weather?.

If we about to get a cold snap then perhaps we will get sightings of winter thrushes closer to our homes as they start to look for berries or we may get Waxwings from Scandinavia, we have an apple tree in our road that is laden with apples, I shall keep a close eye on it this next few days just in case we get any on there like we did two years ago when I took the photograph below.

Waxwing feeding on apples

The Sound of the East Anglian Landscape

December 3, 2014 / clivebaker5 / Leave a comment

I had been thinking today that if asked to describe the East Anglian Landscape I could perhaps describe the landscape to someone who had never visited here, from the Broads to Fens, the undulating fields of North Norfolk, vast beaches, heathlands, and the Brecklands and dominated by the Big Skies of East Anglia.

But then I wondered what would be the typical sound of East Anglia? as a child I would have said the constant cries of gulls, mainly Herring Gulls, growing up near Lowestoft there were always gulls, that and excited shouts in Summer of people on the beach.

A young and Adult Herring gull

But these would be just the sounds of the coast, not of the whole landscape East Anglia, but I think the one sound that for me reflects the East Anglian landscape is that of the Skylark, I have heard it on the coast, on heath and in land on agricultural land and pasture.

I have heard its song as early as February, I am sure most people can identify its song and I bet like me they always look up to see if they can spy this small brown bird as it ascends to a great height only to drop like a parachute back to earth, it reminds me of childhood years spent exploring the Suffolk fields near my home and the constant song of a skylark always seemed to be there in the background.

Poets like Shelly and the East Anglian poet John Clare were inspired by the skylark, I heard a poem this year read on Radio 2 by Issac Rosenberg who was killed in the Somme in 1918, he wrote a poem about a skylark after returning from a night patrol and hearing a skylark singing, it must have been a reminder of home amongst the horror he was enduring.

Skylark

Returning we hear the Larks

Sombre the night is.
And though we have our lives, we know
What sinister threat lies there.

Dragging these anguished limbs, we only know
This poison-blasted track opens on our camp –
On a little safe sleep.

But hark! joy – joy – strange joy.
Lo! heights of night ringing with unseen larks.
Music showering our upturned list’ning faces.

Death could drop from the dark
As easily as song –
But song only dropped,
Like a blind man’s dreams on the sand
By dangerous tides,
Like a girl’s dark hair for she dreams no ruin lies there,
Or her kisses where a serpent hides.

Issac Rosenberg

Go easy on the leaves

December 1, 2014 / clivebaker5 / Leave a comment

On of my jobs at the weekend was to clear up the leaves in the garden, it seemed the Cherry tree was the last to hold on to its leaves but decided they should all fall at once.

It is always a good idea to leave some leaves on the ground for earthworms, but as I was clearing some leaves in a flowerbed I had forgotten about one of the gardens residents that will spend all winter under damp leaves and that is our only remaining native frog, the common frog, there are Marsh frogs in the Romney Marsh area of Kent but these were introduced, and the Pool frog was once widespread in the East Anglian fens (known as the Fen Nightingale) but the population declined during the drainage of the fens, there was one remaining population in Norfolk but there has been no sign of breeding there since the 1990’s and there was hope to start breeding one remaining male from the Norfolk pond with females from Sweden in a hope to kick-start that population again.

So we can say there is only the Common frog now and increasingly there are more numbers found in our gardens than in the wild.

Common frog emerging from under a garden plant container

Common frog in the garden

They will spend the winter under rotting logs, cavities under slabs or underground as well as the damp leaves before emerging in spring to breeding ponds.

We have a very small pond in our garden too small for fish but every year we look for the first signs of frogspawn.

From land to Sea

November 30, 2014 / clivebaker5 / Leave a comment

Having been born and bred near the sea and Lowestoft was once a major fishing port, it would be no surprise to anyone that in my family would be fishermen but you would have to go back a couple of generations.

But what was a surprise to me was that my great, great-grandfather was an agricultural labourer, on an estate in Mendham which in the 1800’s was 25% in Norfolk and 75% in Suffolk, now all in Suffolk, it would seem that he was at least the second generation of Agricultural workers as his Father was also working on that estate too, but in around 1880 he moved to Pakefield in Suffolk and his son (My great-grandfather) started work as a fisherman out of Lowestoft.

I had found the 1881 census and that he was on the vessel ‘Sensation’ April 3rd and he was aged 16, all were listed as Fishermen and were a crew of 9, three of which were married and six unmarried, obviously none could spell and the person doing the census wrote what he thought was the correct spelling as the boat was in Falmouth and all the crew were from Norfolk or Suffolk, so we had

Loddon, Norfock, Bumbrey Sufock, Mutfort Sufock, Pakbuilt Sufock, Gislingham Sufock, Whithall Sufock, Reydon Sufock and Helstrn Sufock.

Not a bad attempt obviously we know Norfolk and Suffolk, Loddon and Reydon are correct, we can guess Bungay, Gisleham and Pakefield, but is it Westhall and Harleston (which is Norfolk) ?

The last of the family fishermen was my grandfather pictured below

My Grandfather in white boots on Lowestoft Fishing Boat

I feel proud to have two generations of fishing in my family as well as generations that worked the land, roots firmly set in the East Anglian landscape.

Grandfather in White braces

At times it was a hard life at sea, but there were good times like above after a good catch, Grandfather died as a result of an accident at sea at the age of 48.

It was not only the elements that they faced as a danger as this extract from the Carlton Colville Chronicles shows, on this day in 1914 Canon Reginald Bignold wrote:

‘ November 30th During the month nine of our fishermen have been killed owing to their vessels having been blown up by mines. ‘

Something in the Garden at night

November 29, 2014November 29, 2014 / clivebaker5 / 4 Comments

About two years ago I got myself a camera trap, triggered by movement it has an infrared beam that when broken will produce a still picture or can be set to video.

So far I managed to pick up Badger, fox, deer and rat when positioned in our small conservation area at work.

But the garden has produced quite different results, for example daylight has many images of collared dove, wood-pigeon, starling, house sparrow, border collie with ball and wife putting out washing all by daylight.

Night time has produced neighbourhood cats (around 6), mouse (maybe why we had so many cats) and best of all we discovered we had a hedgehog in the garden which was fantastic and these mammals are now in decline, main cause is road deaths as it’s only predator is the badger here in the UK.

Part of their diet is slugs, snails and insects so they are known as the Gardener’s friend, so we were delighted when we captured not one but two on video one night.

East Anglian Landscape by foot

November 27, 2014 / clivebaker5 / Leave a comment

I often think the best way to see the best of any landscape is by foot, how many times have you visited somewhere new, parked your car in a car park to find most people do not walk very far perhaps, no more than 1km from their car usually referred to as the ‘Honeypot’ area as this is where you will find most ice cream vans and gift shops.

But Still East Anglia is blessed with many footpaths most are on people’s doorsteps and they may never had ever set foot on them, but these are always worth exploring it is where you find hidden gems, for example when I lived in Lowestoft I used to walk around the village of Somerleyton just outside Lowestoft, this is where I discovered Memorials to US airmen where their aircraft had crashed in WWII, one was interesting as they had been in a british aircraft, lots of tales were circulated at the time, one was that they had stolen the plane and it was shot down to stop them flying to Germany, years later after the official secrets act was lifted, it turned out they were training to use radar in a RAF mosquito, they had seen a ‘doodlebug’ (flying bomb) over the North sea, they gave chase to try to shoot it down, the rule was if you had not shot it down within a mile of the coast you were to abort, unfortunately they carried on and were hit by the ack ack guns stationed at Hopton-on-sea who were also trying to hit the ‘doodlebug’.

I wonder how many people have never seen that memorial and that of another to a flying fortress crew that had also crashed near the church on the Somerleyton estate.

Gate on the footpath to Little Thetford from Ely.

There are lots of wildlife, history and fantastic views too be found by foot and there are websites like Adventures Close to Home that will inspire you to get out there and discover those gems.

Sometimes Wildlife can be right under your nose

November 26, 2014 / clivebaker5 / Leave a comment

Nan birdwatching with seagull behind him

You can wait for hours and not see anything

Wildlife watching can be fun, be it bird or animal, sometimes you can wait for hours and see nothing, sometimes you are lucky and see things you did not expect.

When I lived in Lowestoft we would quite often get rare birds fly in from the sea, once I saw a Woodchat Shrike and a Rose coloured starling in 2 minutes only about 800 metres apart and this was only after I overheard a man in shop say, ” there are a lot of Twitchers down at the Bird’s Eye factory looking at a pink bird “.

I have heard stories of a Puffin on the river Ouse in Cambridgeshire, and a pod of Porpoises that swim up the river Nene as far as Wisbech on a regular basis ( I have seen the photographs ), more a surprise perhaps would be in the 1800’s when Whittlesea mere in Cambridgeshire was drained the skull of a wolf and skeleton of a killer whale were found.

So As I always say it is worth keeping you eyes and ears open as you never know what will turn up.

The early bird song of the morning

November 25, 2014November 25, 2014 / clivebaker5 / Leave a comment

I have noticed these last few morning more Robins singing, this is usually around 5:00 am when I am walking the dog before I go to work.

In one area of about 100 metres I heard at least five singing, this is usually birds declaring their winter territory as the UK population is increased by birds from mainland Europe that have migrated here to spend the winter.

The song in the Autumn is different from that sung in Spring when the males are attracting a mate, The Autumn song is more subdued and can often be heard late at night ( I once heard one at 1:00 am on new years day, my first bird spot of the year ), the spring song which can start as early as late December is more powerful and lively.

Robin singing in Spring

At this time of Year the robins usually sing under street lamps, could it be they think this is the rising Sun?, research has shown that if it is a very cold night the robins will only sing if the have enough energy as they use most of their energy keeping warm, the robin can store fat for energy so if it has been a warm night they will have enough energy left to sing.

Gardeners may have noticed as they dig ground over in the Autumn and Winter they may have a robin at their feet, getting any worms exposed by the digging, this behaviour is linked to when the robin (which is a woodland bird) would follow wild boar and pigs as theY foraged in the leaf litter of the woodland floor.