GREENWOOD
Nature and the neighbourhood
A Natural Bird Table 1
Posted on July 15, 2022
A delicious array of seeds developing fast this very hot and dry July in one of the few wilder areas around the village of Charlton Down. Mostly dock, thistle, and various grasses in this particular patch. A veritable feast for the birds.
Plants of a wasteground
Posted on June 15, 2022
There was once a patch of ground in the village where everything was untended and garden rubbish was dumped. It had been there a long time. It was bounded by a brick wall with a wooden door on one side and a bar fence on the other. Some roses draped themselves over the fence to partially screen the area. Most people walked past it and paid no heed; but it was a surprising place if you paused to look. There was a wonderful assortment of wild plants, many of them flowering, with additional stray cultivated ones. It was a great habitat in its own right, and provided food and shelter for many insects and birds. To most eyes it was a bunch of weeds, and as such it was routinely cut down as a control measure. The flowers always came back. Here are some pictures showing some of the plants that were growing there a couple of years ago.
Only Grasses 2
Posted on June 3, 2022
I am glad that I do not get hay fever because this is the most interesting time of the year for grasses, when the flowers open, and pollen starts to fill the air. Grasses are looking their best, but taking a picture is quite difficult because they move so easily in the breeze, and the camera and I have problems finding a focus point.
CD Meadow Walk 1
Posted on July 1, 2021
Some pictures from a few weeks ago when I strolled around the place I call ‘the meadow’ – which was originally, in the old Herrison Hospital days, known as the incinerator field! All the shrubs and grassland plants were burgeoning. Guelder rose, buttercups, vetch, umbellifers, sorrel, grasses of many types, sallow or goat willow catkins fallen to the ground, a poor dead vole, and a red and green early instar shield bug on a colour-coordinated grass flowerhead.
Remember you can click on any image to enlarge it in a gallery
Spring Greens
Posted on May 27, 2021
Green and more green. Vibrant, fresh, golden. All photographed around 8pm 22 May 2021, in a place I call The Meadow (but some people call it The Triangle). It is on the north edge of the village, just off the public footpath that leads to Forston Grange from the allotments. It is a great place that is managed more like a nature reserve than our official nature reserve. It is a small field of various grasses, brambles, and wild flowers that I think may be cut once a year allowing everything to bloom and seed in perpetuity; allowing ground cover to recover each year providing food for insects and birds and without disturbing overwintering invertebrates. Appropriately narrow mown pathways circle and cross this small grassland patch which is surrounded by an almost continuous belt of native species of trees. Paths inter-connect the area with the open fields outside, and children can make dens in the wooded areas. In summer, the grasses are spectacular. A lovely place to visit especially for its tranquillity.
GREENWOOD 