Good Days

I may not be able to get out on the long walks that I enjoy, but I can still totter down to my local community woodland to see the snowdrops - at least on my good days!

There's not much I can tell you about snowdrops that I haven't covered in previous years. Just enjoy!

I came across this old photograph the other day while looking for something else entirely...

This is the office and sales room of J H Cooper & Sons in Cambridge. All swept aside now in the name of progress, but for over a 100 years the place where the canny people of the town went to buy their furniture. Mention that you needed a bed or an armchair in conversation and someone would always say, "Well, if you ask me, you can't beat Coopers". That seemed to be the only advertising they had.

Armed with that advice you'd make your way to Newmarket Road. "Yes, sir, we can supply a two seat settee instead of the larger model". "Might I suggest a slightly darker shade, sir, you'll find it won't show any marks". "We can usually have it ready in about four weeks, but some of the men will be on holiday at this time of year, so shall we say six weeks?" It arrived in three weeks.

I'm sitting on one of Mr Cooper's armchairs right now!

In order to add "unbeatable value" to this blogpost we'll finish with a little music.

Back in the 1990s I spent my holidays as a walks leader, taking groups through some of the best scenery that England and Wales has to offer. One of the places I went most frequently was the Brecon Beacons National Park (now officially Bannau Brycheiniog) in S Wales. You only occasionally heard Welsh spoken in the town of Brecon, except on market days when all the farmers and their wives drove in from the hills. Here's a piece of descriptive acoustic guitar music, from the great John James, about this resilient group of people....

Reminds me of a sunny day when I stood on the slopes of Fan Nedd watching the sheep being gathered on the other side of the valley.

Take care.

October Song

Just eight pictures today from a recent visit to Fen Drayton Lakes nature reserve, alongside the River Great Ouse, just ten miles from Cambridge. It's one of those sites that has been reclaimed after exploitation of the river gravels to use in building. Nature had already done much to soften the scars of quarrying before the RSPB (Royal Society for the Protection of Birds) stepped in.

A little music for Friday:

At about this time of year I find myself singing a song that I first heard when I was 15 or 16. It's sung here by two sisters that I've enjoyed seeing a couple of times in the last few years. But fifty years before that a teenage version of me was in the Regal in Cambridge listening to the man who wrote it - Robin Williamson of the Incredible String Band.

I met a man whose name was Time

And he said, "I must be going"

But just how long ago that was

I have no way of knowing

Take care.

Marching On

It's March - and time is marching on. I've got out from time to time to go for a march too, though my style of locomotion these days is far from military, more of a dawdle. So apologies for the lack of posts this month, particularly if you've been worried about my absence.

Our local Little Egret has been wading around in the little chalk stream and was so intent on its next meal that it took no notice of me. 

But mostly I was concentrating on close-ups (and very close-ups) of what was down at my feet. Celandines began flowering a while ago.

But a lot of what I found down on the woodland floor still looks decidedly autumnal, like this pine-cone. Would you like a closer look?

I love the patterns that are revealed on close inspection.

Lichens look like tiny flower gardens when you get down on your hands and knees to examine a piece of fallen tree bark.

And here's a tiny sprig of moss pushing up between last year's leaves.

This little oak leaf has been hoisted aloft by the new growth coming up from below - mostly cow parsley, I think. But the weather hasn't always been as optimistic as the foregoing shots suggest.

The wrong sort of snow - for me at least. Although parts of the country had a picturesque covering of the white stuff, here it was wet sleety snow propelled on fierce north-easterly winds.

But the early blossoms seem to come whatever the weather.

I've often lamented the lack of quality and quantity of the street art around here. Then I saw this skillful portrait on an obscure wall of a local sports pavilion. For those of you who, like me, had no idea who this was, I can tell you that David Jolicoeur, aka "Trugoy the Dove", was a rapper who was one third of the hip-hop group De La Soul (I've heard of them). He passed away on February 12th of this year. I'm sure this must just be a personal tribute from a fan who lives locally.

I went back to the copious blossoms. But what would it look like if I photographed Trugoy through the out-of-focus branches.....

I desaturated the colours and cooled the image down a bit. I hope that works. I'd better find a cheery photo to end this brief post....

*******

Now, some time ago I introduced you to the amazing pianist, Derek Paravicini, who, as well as being a first rate musician, also happens to be blind and autistic (or neurodivergent, as we should now say). What I didn't tell you was that Derek is also a patron of the Amber Trust, a charity which exists to provide music lessons for young people with similar needs. One of their star pupils (though they're all stars to me) did rather well on national TV recently:

Well done, Lucy. In case you are wondering, the two men featured in the audience are the singer-songwriter Mika and the classical pianist Lang Lang. If you want to see more videos about the work of the Amber Trust they have their own YouTube channel. (Click on where it says "popular" to find the stories of some of the children who have been helped to fulfil their potential by the charity).

Take care.

Six At Daybreak

We had a beautiful dawn earlier this week and I went out on a short village walk to enjoy the spectacle, take some photos and share them with you. I was hoping that our local geese might overfly the recreation ground as they do most mornings, but that was not to be.

That seems a rather short post. Lets find some music....

....so....

....from February to April, and from the dawning of the day to perhaps the dawning of a musical career. This popped up unexpectedly on YouTube the other day. If you click on the image below it will take you to the music on YouTube. That will allow you to click on the "thumbs up" icon below the video to let a young lady know that you like her music.

When this was recorded she was just ten years old. (As if you needed me to tell you, she won the competition).

Take care.

Five Photos And A Funniful Man

A rather brief post today as I somehow managed to take only a handful of pictures on my most recent outing with my brother. 

The Little Church In The Forest - This tiny church with its unusual octagonal tower is in the non-existent village of Santon, alongside the Little Ouse river in the midst of Thetford Forest in Norfolk. It was built in 1628 but soon fell into decay, and was then resurrected as a sort of private chapel by the vicar of Brandon in the nineteenth century. It's open to the public now and is on my list of places to photograph one day.

Glorious Gorse - Common gorse flowers at any time from January through until June. What's more there are two other species which flower at other times, so you can find gorse in flower at pretty much any time of year - hence the well-known saying "When gorse is in flower then kissing's in season". It's already looking spectacular in Breckland though it won't reach its peak till April.

Catkins Over The Water - these are the catkins, as well as one or two tiny cones, of the Alder, a tree of damp places. It's the bird-watchers' friend as winter visitors like Siskins and Redpolls come to feed on it, though usually high up in the branches.

The Lonely Birch - although most of Thetford Forest is commercial forestry, based on armies of coniferous trees, there's room along the riverside for a more varied tree-scape. On spring days like this it's the place to watch out for Woodlarks, perched at the edge of clearings, singing their lilting song of love. We did see a couple of Woodlarks but ours were on the ground and squabbling!

The Dead Tree Appreciation Society - is a dogged band of enthusiasts who every year in mid-March tramp along this section of the river and stand admiring a small plantation of mostly dying trees. As you've probably guessed, they claim to be looking for a bird, the fabled Lesser Spotted Woodpecker, which is the smallest of our three species of Woodpecker. Many people think it may be an urban myth, a piece of fake news dreamed up by the marketing department of an optics manufacturer in order to sell more expensive and powerful binoculars. But I can tell you that the bird does exist, or at least it did a few years ago when I last set eyes on one.

And that explains what I was doing when I could have been taking more pictures for you.

Need cheering up?

Take care.

Thyme

Somehow, despite the very pedestrian pace of my life, I missed the sad news that the English singer, Norma Waterson, passed away on 30th January this year (the anniversary of my Dad's death, as it happens).

Norma Waterson (15 August 1939 – 30 January 2022)

Norma, her sister Lal and brother Mike were brought up by their grandmother, Eliza Ward, who was descended from an Irish travelling family and knew many old songs. The young Watersons eventually sang together in the early folk clubs in the 1960s. The group formed and re-formed over the years but was always a family affair, more recently also featuring Norma's husband, Martin Carthy, and their daughter Eliza.

In recent years Norma had health problems which restricted her in many areas of life, though somehow she always managed to sing. Here she is, flanked by Martin and Eliza, and with other family and friends supplying harmonies:

I only ever knew them through their many recordings and live performances, but such was the warmth and honesty of everything they sang that, like many others, I thought of them all as old friends. 

Take care.

Four Foggy Ones And A Frank Reply

Just four pictures taken on a recent foggy morning, all within a few hundred yards along a local footpath:

We haven't had much music on the blog lately, but we'll remedy that right now. Chris Wood is one of the quiet men of English folk music. He sings new songs and old traditional ones too, but this is a poem by Frank Mansell, the Cotswold poet, which has been set to music. Lets listen to "The Cottager's Reply"....

Take care.

Dropping In On Grafham Water

Earlier this week my brother and I went for a stroll beside Grafham Water, a man-made reservoir a few miles north-west of home. It was built in the 1960s to provide water for the growing population of the area. Despite its artificial origins much of the shoreline now looks quite natural. In the mid 80s it was designated a Site of Special Scientific Interest and much of the surrounding woods and fields now form a nature reserve.

At this time of year it is a magnet for birds with many dropping in as they pass through on migration. And though you'd have to be very lucky to spot a passing Osprey or the White-Tailed Eagle that was seen there recently, there are usually a few more common migrants to be seen.

Like this White Wagtail, motacilla alba alba to give it its Latin name. We have the very closely related Pied Wagtail (motacilla alba yarrellii) here all year round, but the "White" continental cousins pass through every year on migration. You can tell them by their lighter grey backs and clear division between the grey back and the black head. At first glance our Pied Wagtails look very similar but with a more black-and-white appearance, as the name suggests. They also wag their tails a great deal, so it's a more helpful name than some birds are given.

Now you may have thought that the little Wagtail looked as though it was far from the nature reserves I'd mentioned. And you'd be dead right. Strange as it may seem the best place to find these migrant birds is along the concrete dam holding back the water, even with the constant stream of pedestrians wandering along the wide path and the presence of fishermen on boats and standing at the water's edge.

Ah, here's a Redshank - another well-named feathered friend, if you'll allow that the legs are actually more orange than red. It has a ring on its leg and if we could only read the number on it we might learn if it's resident at Grafham or just passing through on its way further north - either is a possibility. Although the setting looks a bit more natural with odd sticks that have been washed up here, our Redshank is also standing on concrete.

Here's a chap I hoped we might see, a Yellow Wagtail. Again a good name, except that there's also a Grey Wagtail and a rarer Citrine Wagtail that also look yellow. You only see Yellow Wagtails here as they travel through; they'd really prefer a pasture with cattle on it and lots of attendant insect life. As always there were other birds we'd hoped to see, but here's what we did encounter:

Blue Tit, Great Tit, Robin, Dunnock, Wren, Reed Bunting, Chiffchaff, Willow Warbler (heard), Pied Wagtail (and White Wagtail), Yellow Wagtail, Linnet, Blackcap, Blackbird, Song Thrush (heard), Great Crested Grebe, Redshank, Skylark, Swallow, Tufted Duck, Gadwall, Mallard, Mute Swan, Red Kite, Buzzard, Black-Headed Gull, Magpie, Goldfinch, Chaffinch, Canada Goose, Greylag Goose, Wood Pigeon, Jackdaw, Carrion Crow, Rook, Great Spotted Woodpecker (heard drumming), Shelduck, Cormorant.

*******

As that was a rather short post we can have some music. Some of you enjoyed the beautiful old Irish airs, played by Steve Cooney on the guitar, which I featured recently (it's playing now as I write this). But he also has a fine reputation as an accompanist to traditional dance music. So here he is whipping up quite a storm with that incredible fiddler, Martin Hayes.....

Come down off that table, now, and....

take care

.

Some Like It Wet

I consider myself very fortunate that I live reasonably close to some areas of wetland scenery. There was a time when a huge area to the north of Cambridge was fenland, which can be roughly defined as marshy land with rivers winding very slowly through it. Most of it was drained for agriculture, but small areas were left undrained to absorb flood water during times of heavy rainfall. Additionally wetlands have been created where gravel has been extracted and increasingly more have been set aside specifically for wildlife.

Fen Drayton Lakes RSPB reserve is just a short drive from my brother's house and we've been going there a lot recently. It's provided a welcome respite from all the news of Jolly Jack Covid.

And here's some more good news. Yes, spring is slowly making its way here, but I want to talk briefly about three other happy arrivals in this strange, watery landscape.

At one time, not so long ago, if you'd seen a tall, elegant bird at the water's edge it would have been a Grey Heron. It was such a unique bird that nobody bothered about the "Grey" element of the name; you just didn't see any other herons or other birds like it. Other herons now appear sporadically, especially on the Somerset Levels, but here it's Egrets and others that are doing well.

But then in the mid-1990s I was down near Southampton and someone pointed out a small, dazzlingly white bird, a very rare visitor to these shores in those days, a Little Egret. Now they seem to be everywhere - beside rivers, along our coasts, around reservoirs, in every wetland; even in the little ditch that runs a few yards from my front door.

And of course at Fen Drayton Lakes. No one is really sure why they've done so well here, though it's easy to suspect that global warming might have something to do with it.

And then just a few years back there began to be regular sightings of the Little Egret's big cousin, the Great White Egret.

They've not yet become as common as the Little Egret, though in this locality at least, they are seen on most bird-watching trips to the fen edge. You can sometimes see as many as a dozen of them during a day's bird-watching, though being large and white makes them difficult to miss!

And now this winter there's another weird bird on the scene - three weird birds to be more precise. Three Glossy Ibis have turned up and have chosen to spend their winter at Earith in the Fens, of all places.

(By JJ Harrison (https://www.jjharrison.com.au/) - Own work, 

CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=86320224)

These are birds that are native to Africa, though they are highly nomadic, adventurous birds and have made their own way to The Caribbean, the Eastern seaboard of the USA, Australia and other lands, where they have been successful colonists. Some also established themselves in Spain. Now if you're an African bird and you find the Spanish winters a bit chilly for your liking where might you go? Back to Africa till it warms up? No, Earith!

And they are not the only birds on the increase in these strange times. Another egret, the Cattle Egret, is getting more and more common here, even though this is hardly cattle country. And, despite an overall decline in bird numbers, there are also several other species doing well, so life is not all doom and gloom, particularly if you're a birdwatcher.

And I'll finish up with a picture you won't be expecting; just the weathered wall of a pre-fabricated metal hut used as a base for young naturalists on the reserve.

Which leaves just one question unanswered, "What would Claudio Monteverdi have written if he had access to an electric guitar back in 1643?"

"Oblivion Souave" (Monteverdi) by Nora Fischer and Marnix Dorrestein.

Take care.