When The Hoss Was Boss

The foolish human that usually writes this blog went to the Steam Rally on Saturday last weekend and so missed the Heavy Horse show which took place on the Sunday. Something about weather forecasts, he said.

Luckily a few of us were there all weekend giving demonstrations of old-time farming methods. You can see it was cool and a little misty early in the morning.

Some would rather pose for pictures than get on with the hard graft of farm work.

Better show willing once in a while.

Then it's time to show our best side once again.

Time for lunch.

Just one more gorgeous photo then we have to get back to work.

*******

Les also took some video on his phone of some other "big beasts" leaving the main arena...

Take care.

Thoughts On The Fen

 Lets say this straight away....

....most of the fens are not what the majority of people would consider beautiful. Big flat fields are farmed in the modern way with little space for nature. If the electricity company want to put up a line of pylons then no one will object, certainly not on grounds of desecrating a visually appealing landscape. And there are miles of landscape like the scene above.

When I was at school Cornelius Vermuyden and those who drained these wetlands were considered heroes of a sort; draining the peat and opening up these unproductive marshes for agriculture. Now it's beginning to look like a huge mistake. The peat dried out and within a couple of centuries simply blew away in the wind, till now there's barely enough good soil in many places to support arable farming.

The area in the above photo is called Adventurers' Fen, land which was given to those who "adventured" the capital which made the vast drainage scheme a possibility. Now it belongs to the National Trust and is the scene of a new "adventure" as they attempt to return it to something like its original state.

If they succeed - and the early signs are that they will - then agriculture's loss will be nature's gain. The level of success will depend on the size of the area which can be reclaimed and the various conservation bodies are thinking big. 

Although I'm in a hopelessly outnumbered minority I find these reclaimed areas are very beautiful (though I even find the square fields and straight concrete roads of the farmland hold an inexplicable attraction to me).

Of course, beauty itself is a slippery concept, varying not only from person to person but also over time. Before Wordsworth and the other Lakeland poets had their say the mountains of Cumbria were usually described as "horrid", which meant places to be feared and avoided. But their poems opened our eyes to their delights. Wordsworth himself wrote fierce letters complaining about the new fad for painting cottages white, much preferring the colour of the natural stone. Now everyone loves the little white farmsteads dotted over the green hills.

Wordsworth's rhyming led indirectly to our upland regions becoming National Parks while the lower, flatter lands were ignored till the recent designation of the New Forest and Norfolk Broads.

If an area's importance for wildlife was being considered rather than the scenic ideals of the Romantic movement then mudflats, estuaries, woodlands and reedbeds might be higher on the list of landscapes worth preserving. We seem to be slowly coming around to this way of thinking though it's rare indeed to see anyone out photographing or sketching around here, unless they are photographing birds through a long lens.

Government agencies also seem to have an ambivalent strategy towards these lowland areas; they agree to the protection of relatively small areas, while seeing little scenic or natural value in the rest of it. Scenically a line of pylons or a windfarm has a huge impact on such a flat area, and nature really needs the protected areas to be connected by a more sympathetic type of farming.

Having said all that, now that the nesting season has finished, the Environment Agency are out clearing the lodes (drainage channels). And this particular lode is part of the system which maintains water levels in the Sedge Fen. OK, time to stop thinking so much and instead just enjoy one of the newer spectacles of the fen.

Konik ponies. They were brought here to graze the vegetation and help to maintain the mosaic of habitats. They live a semi-wild existence here on Bakers' Fen, Burwell Fen, Adventurers' Fen and parts of Little Fen, though they are checked every day by the National Trust who manage the area.

We met and chatted with one of the staff who was on her way to check on the Highland cattle, but who couldn't resist stopping by to have a look at the Konik herd and this year's foals.

I think she said there were 70 or 80 ponies in the herd. Like all grazing animals they attract bothersome insects during the warmer months - and a retinue of Starlings only too happy to help out with grooming....

Take care.

Horse Power

As promised, a few pictures of the heavy horses at the Haddenham Steam Rally. If the weather had been cooler I'd planned to spend longer watching the horses being paraded in their show ring. Most of the horse show takes place in the corner of the showground, away from the hustle, bustle and noise of the main show, though some which are shown regularly also enter the main ring. 

The horses didn't seem to be enjoying the heat any more than the human visitors, but their owners quickly led them into the shade to cool off with plenty of water.

And just a few photos of other things that caught my eye....

....like the chain-saw sculptor....

....the man with his little street organ....

....and some beer suitable for aging bloggers!

Take care.

Chasing Dragons

This time of year is not always the best for watching birds - some are on nests, some hidden away with their youngsters, some moulting and only a few non-breeding migrants returning just yet. But it is the time to go searching for other treasures of nature.

They won't all be rare, of course, but who could ignore the fiery flash of a Red Admiral butterfly skittering among the thistles?

And who could pass by the poise of a Banded Demoiselle? And the photo reveals that this particular demoiselle has notably hairy legs!

There are still some birds to be found at the two reserves my brother and I visited last week. A watchful Grey Heron poses in one of the shallow pools of the reedbed. Nothing escapes that piercing yellow eye.

Great Mullein is a plant of roadsides, railway lines and waste places. It's impressively tall but only a small section of its flower spike is in bloom at any one time. When you look closely it's rather pretty; I've seen a lot less showy plants that are tended lovingly by gardeners.

Here's what I was really hunting for - dragons! Well, dragonflies anyway. This is the female, or perhaps an immature male, of the Ruddy Darter. 

Here's the male, which looks quite different. They are a common species around the reedbeds, flooded gravel pits and slow-moving rivers that feature heavily on our local nature reserves.

What's the collective noun for a group of Seven-Spot Ladybirds? 4 x 7 = 28! though there were actually far more of them than the picture shows.

A Painted Lady butterfly. The first one I've had a chance to photograph this year. They fly here from mainland Europe most summers and every few years we get a sizeable influx. I'll not tell you how many pictures I took before it agreed to turn to the right position.

While I was busy photographing the insects a young Muntjac deer tiptoed across the marshy ground. Even if the lack of little horns didn't give away that it was a very young individual, its complete innocence and heedlessness would have betrayed its youthful naivety. 

Damselflies everywhere! Two Common Blues and a Blue-Tailed Damselfly soak up the morning sun.

This is the Maiden Pink, a speciality of the sandy soils of Breckland - but a very uncommon one these days. It is threatened by both over-grazing and under-grazing of the heathland. Too much grazing and the plants are devoured by sheep, too little grazing and scrub encroaches, overwhelming the tiny flowers. These were growing in a small garden of native plants near the visitor centre at Lakenheath Fen RSPB reserve.

Back to the dragonflies. A Four-Spotted Chaser perches on its favourite reed. The dark spots on the wings give it its name. There are two spots on each of the four wings, 2 x 4 =  4 ? Hmmm...

One little yellow triangle just behind the wings though definitely equals a Norfolk Hawker. These were once restricted to the Norfolk Broads but, happily, they have now spread to other places - though they are still a threatened species and I always feel privileged to see one. And, indeed, all the other treasures found on my rambles.

Take care.

Sheep And Weeds

My walk ended up on familiar, well-trodden paths - though there's always something different to see and photograph. The title has rather given the game away: a flock of raggle-taggle sheep are grazing Shepreth Moor and there's a magnificent tangle of weeds on the poppy field. So with no further ado.....

"Hey, I ain't no sheeps!"

Take care.

(the brown, slightly mad-looking, animals

 are Manx Loghtan sheep and lambs, originally from the Isle of Man,

kept mainly for their value as conservation grazers)