The trail camera moved a while back but the grass around it got so long, we had problems with anything other than camouflage photos of what went through. I pulled up some bits and bobs but then John strimmed through and now we can see rather better who or what is around. Moths! Which don't photograph well. The deer are back but again not a good picture. No sign of that wretched coypu again - perhaps it has wandered off? The hare is around though, and always so beautiful to see!
Next week I will write about orchids - they are slowly coming out. Of course I may forget... Yesterday and today have been about getting work done to ensure food later in the summer and autumn. I saw some small and not dead yet tomato plants in a local supermarket, so succumbed, although I know they will cause me heartache, not least if we have a moist and humid summer. Anyway, I had the space and we have the 20 litre plastic cloches (well former heating fuel canisters), so yesterday I cleaned up the space a bit and planted the tomatoes next to the chillies and aubergines I bought at the vide grenier last week. If they do well, there is most of a ratatouille there, I just need to set off the courgette plants.
So now for the travelogue - The Broads are very beautiful but in a rather bleak way. But as soon as you get up on to a bit of higher land (say 40 feet above sea level), you are into standard East Anglian rolling farmland. This on the World War II discovery circular path that goes out from Acle and I was standing by a disused and overgrown pill box.
But out in the middle of the Broads, like here down on Halvergate Marshes, you get the feel of the immensity of the sky and the landscape. This is looking towards Mutton's Mill, but if I looked 90º to the West, there was a clump of another 3 or 4 mills. There are spots where you can see up to 8 or 9, but some are now surrounded by trees or have fallen down. Mutton's Mill will be having the scaffolding taken down once the driveway dries out, then the refurbished sails will be put back on and it will be magnificent. By September all work should be completed.
Suffolk Wildlife Trust's Carlton Marshes reserve is being extended along the River Waveney, and there are accessible hides and landing stages, lots of nesting and migrating birds and some nice cattle keeping the scrub down. The Trust has been able to rebuild the visitor facilities to create a magnificent café area, for use by visitors and by local community groups (there was a Knit and Natter group there when I visited). The floor to ceiling window over the Marshes gives a mesmerising view.
RSPB Strumpshaw is another rather splendid reserve and well appreciated by locals and twitchers who come vast distances to see the birds there. At one end of the Reserve there is Strumpshaw Pump House - a engine house for pumping water, so a different generation to the windmills. It has a rather impressive chimney that is a navigation point out on the marshes. The pump house itself has an interesting architecture and has been renovated and a bat box put on the outside although with so much natural habitat close by, it isn't that well used. A new, wildlife bench has been installed and is wonderfully tactile.
Whitlingham Country Park and Broad is close to Norwich and the most accessible part, and will have Changing Places toilets installed by September too. As with all the Broads, it is man-made, but more recent than the others, dating back only to the last century. It is home however to at least 78 confirmed different species including bittern and otters. I met Egyptian geese there - pretty, but a non-native invasive species.
Well, that's it for this week. Next week I will be back to purely French subjects.
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