The Field in March

The Met Office forecast said that today would be another sunny day like we had here yesterday. It didn’t actually turn out like that, but I went to The Field anyway, as I’d planned to go.

The first thing I noticed was how much the oil seed rape has grown. A lot of the plants must be about 70-80cm tall now, and a few of them are actually flowering!

I didn’t find any badger prints this month, but I did find these pheasant tracks (above) and a much larger deer track (below) with my boot for comparison. There were lots of the tiny deer hoof marks too, at the bottom the of the field by the river, but these large ones were up at the top near the railway embankment.

There were many more birds around the field boundaries today, despite the bird scarer thumping out periodically. I saw pheasant, partridge, buzzard, long tailed tit, wood pigeon, rook,  great tit, and yellow hammer, and in addition I heard skylark and  green woodpecker. I haven’t seen yellow hammers for years, and yet the hedge on the north west side of the field was hopping with them. They kept flying a bit further ahead of me with their loopy flight, as I walked down the slope.

The hazel catkins are brown and almost finished, but the elder and hawthorn are coming into leaf and the blackthorn is in blossom. Under the hedge, along the railway embankment, and in the ditch bordering Walls field there were masses of primroses.

I came across two trees that I couldn’t identify at all, so I shall have to get the tree book out! One had huge lumpy reddish-brown buds on very sturdy up-turning twigs – a solidly built tree of about 25 feet high.

And the other, down near the river, had clusters of oval lime green discs with a reddish mark in the centre, and tiny clusters of red flower buds. The bark was fairly smooth and a slightly yellowish brown, and the unopened buds were narrow, pointed and black. I’m mystified – but hope to track it down!

Anglian Arts Project: If you haven’t done so recently, do pop over to the Anglian Arts Page – on the menu bar above – as I am slowly adding the artists who will be exhibiting with us this year. We have nine of the twelve signed up so far, so its going pretty well and I’m delighted with the range of artists we are getting. I can’t give you a web link for each of them yet, as I need their written permission to do so, but if you are impatient a quick google search will show you more about them and their work! 🙂