Cuckoo arrives then silence ensues for a few days. It seems to happen every year. We patiently wait for the first announcement of arrival within the village. This year it was Sue’s turn; a lunchtime stint in the allotment on 21st April was rewarded with the first calls of the newly arrived Cuckoo. Then all goes quiet, whilst we wonder if “our” Cuckoo was just passing through. Then the calls start again as the Brampton Cuckoo calls her way from Burgh, along the river Oxnead and back again. The same trees are favoured as the are very year – the Ash on the grazing meadows, the Poplars near Oxnead Bridge and the old Oak on the Brampton hill. Sumer is icumen in.
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Cuckoo arrival
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Surrounded by Swallows
A warm Sunday morning in Spring and we are surrounded by Swallows. Walking through the Long Meadow amongst grazing horses, the Swallows swoop and hawk for insects around us. Skimming along just above ground level, their blue-black backs looking polished and glistening in the early sunshine. Their beaks close with an audible snap as they scoop insects. We stand and watch, almost mesmerised.
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Buzzard over the high wood
Over the last five years or so Buzzards have been busily colonising North Norfolk. The hawks have bred in various local woods – copses with tall trees, preferably those mixed between conifer and broad leaved tree species – but this year they have moved into the parish. On this warm Spring morning we watched one lazily breast the treetops over Keeper’s Wood before settling on the tallest conifer. It ducked as three crows swooped and mobbed it. It then sat hunched as if waiting for the thermals to rise. We left it to it.
The word Buzzard is a satisfying one to say. I assume that is why it has stuck. As you might expect, it has a falconry connection. Apparently derogatory as derived from the almost untranslatable Old French word for “waster”, “carrion-eater” or something along those lines. The implication being that it was not a great falconer’s hawk, although in truth it was used to hunt rabbits although it apparently wouldn’t catch very many. I will look forward to the mewing calls, which I expect to drift across the valley on hot July days.
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Spring arrival
Until this morning the dawn chorus came courtesy of resident songbirds. Until today the chorus has been delivered by the Blackbirds, Robins and Wrens. All of whom have hung about all Winter and have been defending their individual territories in song since February. But this morning a Summer visitor arrived and added to the soundscape. Admittedly not a great song, its monotonous Chiff-Chaff call does not conjure up the rapturous enjoyment that results from hearing a Nightingale, but it is an early Spring song with a flavour of Summer mixed in. Each year their arrival seems to coincide with the emergence of the first fresh green Hawthorn leaves, the Wild Daffodils and Primroses. The Chiff Chaff is a greenish, relatively nondescript member of the Warbler family. Now we wait for the related Warblers, the Blackcaps and Garden Warblers, both of which are more melodious songsters but not so early to arrive.
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The arrival of Brampton spring
The arrival of Spring in Brampton was heralded by the emerging display in the church yard. The first to appear were the Snowdrops. These were following in a somewhat unseemly rush by the Aconites and the first Daffodils. In the railway cutting the last of a once much larger population of Primroses cling on to the lower slopes. A few warm days this week and the Wild Cherries are all in blossom as the Snowdrop petals slowly senesce.
Native birds are making the most of the brief period before the Summer visitors arrive. At the old Stag-headed Oak at the top of the hill past our cottage, a Great Spotted Woodpecker drums on the highest resonant dead limb. His rapid morse code answered by a rival on another old tree. Blue Tits are paired up and nestbuilding and a Collared Dove is sitting precariously but tight on a ramshackle nest of sticks in the garden Birch. The grass is growing. -
Frosty Sunday morning
A crystal clear starlit night gives way to the morning garden etched by frost. The air feels fresh and welcoming as we walk out with the dogs. A Woodpecker’s rhythmic drumming resonates from the old oak at the top of the hill. This creates the feeling of anticipation – Spring may be some way off, but it is expected. Territories have to be established, defended and trumpeted. At this time of the year there is little noise to compete with the intermittent rattle that Woodpeckers can generate – at times there appears to be an echo, another bird drums its answer. The two birds swap percussion until one flies off in that curious bounding way to another tree, another territory.
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Real Autumn
Now the breeze is northerly. The branches sway at the change in direction and Birch leaves rain gently down on the garden with every gust. The village lanes are strewn with the leaves of Sycamore. Hazel and Wych Elm. The Field Maples, which have taken on a glowing chrome yellow, are slowly losing their fight to keep their leaves. On the railway line the Poplars are already bare, their wind note has changed in pitch and the sweet smell of leaf decay scents the air.
As I stack wood – the most Autumnal of tasks – a ragged skein of geese head towards the coast; at least one hundred strong. I watch and listen for a minute or two. The cut logs give off their scent of sap and resin. Indoors, the plaintive notes of French Horn from a Britten Pastoral adds to the Autumnal feel.
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November frost
The ground frost lingers after dawn. On mornings such as these, deer venture out of their woodland cover in search of fresh-thawed grass. I am being watched by a Roe doe as the dogs and I follow the railway line. She stands still in the lee of the old hedge; only as light movement of her head and the twitch of her ears as she monitors us. No need for flight, she is confident in her distance from us and the proximity of the haven of Keeper’s Wood. She is still there after we turn around and head for home.
Further on a Muntjac Deer adopts a different tactic as it crosses our path, its ungainly pig-like run following a straight-ish path to the wood. The Barn Owl does not waste energy in a hunting flight this morning, but perches hunched on a fence post, but patiently watching.
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Bats
Evenings in late September are the prime time for bat walks. This evening the old railway line was teeming with them. Pipistrelles patrolling the well-treed sectors with their tightly turning acrobatics. Often many in sight and, with the help of a bat detector, in sound at the same time. They have favourite areas and stick to them and on occasion briefly chase one another. We walk and listen.
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September Saturday
On a perfect September day, falling acorns rattle on the road. The leaves maintain their colour, with the early exception of the turning leaf of the Virginia Creeper. The Creeper clings to the walls of the Marsham Road Cottages. The sky is a softer blue, brushed with the feathery high cirrus cloud. Along the Railway Line a family of Bullfinches creep along the Blackthorn thickets. In the distance a lone Muntjac hurdles the potato baulks. The cool Saturday morning air just moves the very tips of the highest trees. It feels as if we are just about to turn the corner into Autumn proper.
