Wild Visitors

Here are three of the rarer visitors to our garden, which borders New Forest heathland and is not far from the woods.

One day last week, I looked out of the kitchen window to see this young grey heron ducking his head as he strode underneath a washing line full of drying sheets and towels. He then stalked across the grass on his long legs and disappeared. Later, I found him perching on a neighbour`s gate in the lane.

This heron has apparently found our neighbour`s fish pond, so they are not so pleased to see him.


Another view from the kitchen window. A Greater Spotted Woodpecker was hammering at the bark of a young Rain Forest Pansy tree growing in a border. The tree has several dead branches this spring and the bark wounds made by both woodpeckers and cat claws will not be helping. We need to find it a bark protecting sleeve before more damage is done. Even so, it was thrilling to watch this beautiful woodpecker at such close range.





On Sunday, a hot day of bright sunshine, this slow worm was basking on the stone floor in the doorway to the greenhouse. When he was disturbed, he tried to escape into a hole at the side of the inner brick wall, but this must have been a dead end as he turned round and came back out again. As he was vulnerable to predation by birds where he was, we coaxed him into an empty seed tray and carried him to safety in the wild area at the side of the greenhouse. A place where we have seen slow worms in the past.

"Loveliest of trees, the cherry now...."

I was about to add this to my blog two weeks ago. All I had to do was to type out the A.E. Houseman poem. I then heard news that a friend from the past had died and I suddenly lost the heart to post. E.L. was a naturalist, a gardener, a kind and caring man who was highly thought of by the many people who knew him. He died in the Forest, as he wished, "Under the greenwood tree".

Now, the cherry blossom lies scattered, dry and brown on the grass. I have decided to post the poem after all. Learning of a death in the spring makes Houseman`s words all the more poignant. Rest in peace E.L.



It is almost the end of the road for the old white cherry tree by the pond. It was planted many years ago, at the end of the garden of the old white farmhouse. Now, it grows on our side of the fence, in the shade of a great lime tree. After the war, the land from the old village farm was split up into parcels and sold and the cherry tree is now on the edge of our vegetable garden and the fields.

There is a tradition that New Forest farms have at least one cherry tree. Sometimes a wild, Gean cherry and sometimes a cultivated variety. Our old tree has a mass of white double blossoms. Nowadays, the fruit grow too high for harvesting so the cherries are left for the birds.
This year, the blossom has been so beautiful. As you walk down the hill through the gorse, our cherry`s floating white flowers seem to splash out from the changing greens of the other trees around it. Standing under the tall old tree, even when the sky is grey as it was this morning, there is a subtle, monochrome loveliness of white blossom against grey cloud.

Cherry blossom against the green of a neighbouring lime tree.


The cracked old trunk where a main branch threatens to split away.


The trunk of the old tree is gradually decaying. A local tree surgeon told us that it may live a few more years yet. Up in the crumbling crevices of the trunk, insects feed and snails shelter.

"Loveliest of trees, the cherry now..."

Loveliest of trees, the cherry now
Is hung with bloom along the bough
And stands about the woodland ride
Wearing white for Eastertide.

Now, of my threescore years and ten,
Twenty will not come again,
And take from seventy springs a score,
It only leaves me fifty more.

And since to look at things in bloom
Fifty springs are little room,
About the woodlands I will go
To see the cherry hung with snow.

by A.E.Houseman (from his collection "A Shropshire Lad")

The Foal on the Hill

This lovely little coloured filly was born about three weeks ago. Her mother has been around here for years, but last year her owner took her to meet his coloured stallion back on his farm. The filly will be a New Forest cross and should be taller than her mother`s 13.2hh. Already she is sturdy and alert.

I took some photos of her one evening last week as she grazed, fed and played out on the Forest. The mare is thin this spring, but the grass is growing now. Her owner hopes to get her in so that she and the foal can graze on the watermeadows this summer.

On Election Day - taking nothing for granted

On May 6th , 2010, the people of Britain were able to vote for a change of government. Two days later, we are still unsure who will lead the next parliament. Voting results have given us the possibility of a Hung Parliament. There are fears of instability and indecision. There are also signs of hope. My own hope is that the best politicians of the "winning" coalition will stop their infighting and begin to talk to each other like intelligent adults. A hope that extreme policies will slide off into the margins while the real issues that need dealing with ( the economy and the environment in particular) can be confronted with care and wisdom.


I voted late on Thursday morning, in our nearest Polling Station. A grey, chilly morning. Cherry trees blossomed around the edge the village car park. I walked up the hill past cottages and gardens bursting with blossom and new leaf, to the Polling Station in the lane by the beech woods.



I was the only voter in the village hall. As I cast my vote, I said a silent "Thank you" to the women of the Suffrage Movement who had made this possible. To Millicent Fawcett, to Mrs Pankhurst and her daughters, to Emily Davison who gave her life to the cause of gaining suffrage for women in Britain, and to the unsung ordinary women of their generation who campaigned for the vote that we take for granted now. Women in Britain were unable to vote until 1918, when women over thirty years of age were granted the vote. It was not until 1928 that all women in Britain were granted the same voting rights as men.



In many parts of today`s world, people cannot vote without fear of persecution and violence. Placing my cross and posting my ballot paper in a quiet place, overseen by three friendly, unthreatening people, was a privilege indeed.

Afterwards, I walked through the woods on my way back to the car. Up on the mossy hedge banks, beech trees in new leaf filtered light through bright green.

The oaks are much later in leaf this year.

A pair of grey squirrels were digging for buried nuts among roots and mosses.

A beech between two pathways, where centuries of water and passing feet have eroded the tracks so that old trees grow on an island of tangled roots.

Soft, vivid green of new beech leaves against grey skies.


A rotting beech trunk, where woodpeckers and insects feed.


Two riders passed by with their horses. Out enjoying the spring woods in quiet companionship.

The track to the village green.

An old oak, its bud newly breaking, against the bright, flamboyant beeches.

A New Forest mare, heavily in-foal, grazes beside the road.

A young copper beech unfurling red leaves in the hedgerow.

Afterwards, in the early afternoon.......a visit to Christchurch .

Flower borders in the High Street shone out with vivid displays. Heavy flowers of these beautiful striped tulips are underplanted with red primulas.

My son took this photo . Here we are beside the Quay, feeding ducks, swans and pigeons with grain.
We had to be careful. This young swan became too interested in the camera!

On my way home again, I saw one of the earliest New Forest foals by the roadside with her mother and her family group.

She was too busy at the milk bar to have a better photograph than this.......

Song on May Morning

Last night we had rain. Dust dry fields and cracked earth drank in the warm rain brought by a South West wind. Billows and sheets of cloud in shades of grey passed over us all day, shading the green land and sometimes bringing showers. In this slow, late spring, leaves are darkening and flowers break from buds in the soft light. A wet-coated vixen sneaks in through a gap in the field fence and roots for grain beneath the bird table. The air is a riot of birdsong, Forest ponies crop the new grass and swallows swoop for flies across a grey, damp May Day sky.

Bright leaves of hawthorn up in the high hedge, but the May blossom buds are tight as spring has been so late this year.

First buds of elder.....
.........while blackthorn blossom now is almost over.

Bright rhodedendron, President Roosevelt, shines its first flowers.

While the small blue flowers of creeping ivy hide among cleaver and ground elder in the rain.

Feathery flowers of ash against grey sky.

Willow catkin on magnolia flower.

White Magnolia stellata flowers against emerging buds of purple lilac.


Last year, this old azalea nearly died. Pruned hard back, it surprised us this spring with vivid new flowers. A survivor.

Somewhere among these redcurrant flowers, a bumble bee buzzed and droned, maybe drinking rain from the leaves.

Bluebells and fresh striped leaves of gardeners` garters.


I have posted these for Mornings Minion . This is a three year old shrub, Vibernum Carlesii, which looks so much like one now flowering in her new Kentucky garden. The buds are a much darker shade of pink before they open.

Among the late narcissi, the Mole is back!

Song on May Morning

Now the bright morning star, dayes harbinger,
Comes dancing from the East, and leads with her
The Flowry May, who from her green lap throws
The yellow Cowslip and the pale Primrose.
Hail, bounteous May, that dost inspire
Mirth, and youth and young desire,
Woods and Groves are of thy dressing,
Hill and Dale doth boast thy blessing.
Thus we salute thee with our early Song,
And welcome thee, and wish thee long.

by John Milton (1608-1674)