jackdaw – derrickjknight

Clear Water

Pink sky streaks sent me out in the bright, chill, morning with my camera,

and perhaps led me to the hues of gladiolus, Dr Ruppel, Mamma Mia, Lady Emma Hamilton, this particular climbing rose, pelargonium, and carpet rose.

High up in the copper beech I think it was a blackbird serenading.

We took an early drive into the forest, and, enabling me to wander around the banks of Ibsley Water, Jackie parked her modus near the ford.

Angled sunlight cast long reflections on the rippling surface and penetrated the clear water to the shingle bed.

The gnarled oaks beneath Rockford Sand Pit have almost shed their foliate canopies.

While Jackie sat in the car an inquisitive jackdaw eavesdropped on her

animated conversation with a friendly robin. Our red-breasted friends do seem to be lingering in the woodlands.

Elizabeth visited us this evening and stayed for dinner which consisted of Jackie’s wholesome shepherd’s pie; crunchy carrots; firm Brussels sprouts, broccoli, and cauliflower, with meaty gravy, followed by apple and gooseberry crumble and custard. The Culinary Queen drank Hoegaarden and my sister and I drank Adam Mason South African Merlot 2019.

Trapeze

For the last few days we had experienced a cold North East wind. Today was much warmer, and sunnier than we had expected. Jackie photographed the weather vane showing the shift to South West.

She spent much of the day working in the garden where she gathered images of

perky pansies in different containers;

close relatives sprawling comfrey

and bristly borage;

kindred primroses

and primulas;

potted pelargoniums in the greenhouse;

cyclamen clusters;

spirea sprays in white

and, in amber, Japonica leaves.

She focussed on a single creamy daffodil

a pair with peachy trumpets

and a lemon yellow clump leading into the Rose Garden with its tulips in the distance.

More potted tulips cluster on the patio.

Aubretia amble over the Kitchen Bed tiles.

The more tender aeoinium Zwartkof still needs the protection of the greenhouse where

bulbs of Tiger Moon

and Rose Isabella lilies are sending up shoots;

similarly aquilegia

and cobaea Scandens have germinated.

A vigilant jackdaw keeps watch on the roof.

We have now named one of our long tailed tits Burt. This is because, when joining his friends in plundering Nugget’s food supply, he enjoys diving from a

firm wisteria branch to a flexible honeysuckle tendril

from which he can tap on our kitchen window inviting us to catch him.

Try as she might, the Assistant Photographer has never quite managed to grab a clear image of the swinging action. You will have to take our word for it that in this picture he really is

https://youtu.be/OJU8kppcHWk

earning his name.

It was a fortunate coincidence that two messages from Gwen Wilson today enabled me to add postscripts to

‘Catching up with your blog posts drew me again to your trapeze performing ancestors.

The Australian newspapers are littered with references to the Dental Riskits. Pages and pages of them. I can easily outline how to look them up if you are interested. This death notice contains some of the most intriguing family history information I have come across.

https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/212220187?searchTerm=”dental%20riskit”&searchLimits=

and her mother and other relatives / / /

https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/27308369?searchTerm=”dental%20riskit”&searchLimits=sortby=dateAsc

There are so many memorial notices it is clear that Holly’s family were very close and in great distress at losing family members in quick succession. She had many siblings. Her twin sister was particularly bereft.

regards

Gwen Wilson’

P.P.S:

and here is an extract from a comment of Gwen’s on another post: ‘On a whim, I typed a search on Riskit into our digitised newspapers and immediately returned this article from1926. Not Holly – his second wife. . . https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/186061378?searchTerm=“riskit”&searchLimits=’

This describes an accident involving a 20′ fall while performing.

Mike Ribble, Burt Lancaster’s character in Trapeze, was so injured in the fall shown above that he could no longer perform. My great Uncle Jack Riskit (John Evans) turned to theatre management after his fall in 1926.

This evening we dined on Jackie’s wholesome chicken and vegetable soup with crusty bread followed by her delicious dried fruit lattice pie and custard.

“Welcome To The World Of Flies”

Now I am going to throw a spanner in the works of selection. I have just remembered ‘The Drift’, the second half of which post contains a number of pictures which must be included. It is such a unique New Forest event. I don’t wish to impose more work on my readers, but any comments would be welcome.

I have culled the 5 least popular of my 19 and added the four above from The Drift. At least the shortlist is reduced by one.

When we visited Wessex Photo yesterday I was encouraged to enter that company’s own competition on the subject of Spring. This gave me the opportunity to submit

this jackdaw gathering nesting material from a cow’s hide, taken from my post of 3rd May. I had rejected it from my first selection for the Everton competition because it could have been taken anywhere.

A brief walk around the garden this afternoon gleaned

these diascia which have survived two winters outside in their pot;

these marvellously scented sweet peas having forced their way through paving beside the kitchen wall;

above the campanula and geraniums the red peonies first photographed in bud;

this velvety climbing rose now springing from the arch Aaron erected over the Shady Path;

and, in the Rose Garden Gloriana, For Your Eyes Only; Summer Wine and Madame Alfred Carriere above the entrance arch beside

Festive Jewel nudging me for a dead heading session.

Later we took a short drive into the forest. Warborne Lane, outside Lymington, is so narrow that we just coasted along in the wake of these two horse riders. The two cyclists lurking behind the hedge had no choice but to wait their turn for a place on the road. We waited for them, too.

On the moorland beside St Leonards Road cattle and ponies lazed or grazed.

So bright was the head of this wagtail darting about that it seemed to be wearing a daisy hat.

The twitching of his mother’s tail as she reacted to the troublesome flies made it difficult for her offspring to latch onto his milk supplier.

Eventually he set off on a frisky trot

soon returning to shelter behind his Mum.

The flies were getting to him too. Dropping to the ground he rolled and kicked around for a while,

then tried to nudge them away.

“Welcome to the world of flies” exclaimed Jackie as he gave up and rose to his feet again.

On our way home we stopped at Hordle Chinese Take Away for this evening’s dinner with which Jackie drank Hoegaarden and I drank Carinena El Zumbido Garnacha Syrah 2017.

A Normal Day For Aaron

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Today, Easter Sunday, we confined ourselves to light gardening. For Aaron it was a normal day.

He reorganised the compost bins. This involved shifting the greenish fencing to the left from behind the Head Gardener’s Shed, and moving the contents of one heap into the one I had emptied during the week.

He painted the Ace Reclaim Bench.

He weeded more paths, and moved spare posts from the rickety orange shed to the trunk of the sturdier beech tree. Both of these tasks are shown in this view of the Phantom Path with the beech at the far end.

Another snaking path was that entitled Heligan.

The Shady Path, seen beyond the Dragon Bed;

and the Gazebo Path were weeded last week.

We have many ajugas, such as these

in the Oval Bed, like Elizabeth’s Bed beyond, now fully composted.

We have almost finished the preparation of the Rose Garden, the first image of which shows the chimney pots in the distance, and the vantage point from which, at the south-easternmost corner I photographed the

jackdaw, now guarding the nest inside the chimney, with my little ZX700 HS. Every so often the bird descends into the chimney.

geranium macrorrhizum Ingwersen's Variety

The geraniums macrorrhizum Ingwersen’s Variety are now blooming nicely.

This evening we dined on Jackie’s piquant cauliflower cheese, fish pie, crunchy carrots and runner beans, with which I finished the shiraz.

Keep Off My Roof

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We carried out a little more gardening maintenance today.

Jackie concentrated on conditioning beds and pots like this sweet pea trough.

It was not her own hunger that caused her to apply her teeth to the seal of the Miracle Gro tub.

This was food for the plants.

In addition to my usual clearing up after the Head Gardener, I transferred more barrow loads of compost to the Oval Bed.

A sleek jackdaw patrolling our ridge tiles, head turning this way and that, uttered repeated warning cries of ‘Keep off my roof’.

This evening we dined on roast chicken; sweet and ordinary roast potatoes; sage and onion stuffing; with green and orange mixed veg, namely Brussels sprouts, carrots, and green beans. Jackie drank Hoegaarden and i drank Cimarosa Limited Edition shiraz 2014.

Evil Little Weevils

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Yesterday afternoon our peace was disturbed by a clattering and scratching emanating from the wall behind a radiator in the TV half of the sitting room. We used to hear that in the open fireplace. Until we lit a fire. Clearly the jackdaws were back, building their nest in a now boarded up chimney. Sure enough, one was perching sentinel on a chimney pot this morning.

Much of the day was spent attending to the garden, throughout which violets are popping up.

My contribution was generally tidying up and cutting the grass.

The Rose Garden is coming along quite well,

as is the Front Garden.

I was close enough to this wasp in the orange shed to be sure that we do have them.

Jackie’s efforts included relining the Waterboy’s pond which had sprung a leak;

replenishing the soil in pots and hanging baskets, during which she discovered her first clutch of evil little vine weevils;

and poking holes with an aerator into the less healthy looking grass patches.

While we took drinks in the Rose Garden before dinner, Jackie spotted that the Big Beast has shown us what it thinks of my pathetic round peg in the square hole. It has simply moved along a touch and ripped off a lot more fencing. We really do hope it is not a rat.

This evening we dined on Jackie’s delicious lamb jalfrezi, savoury rice, and vegetable samosas. Jackie, having drunk Hoegaarden earlier, did not join me in my Bergerac 2015. Not that she would have done anyway. It is not her tipple.

Heard On The Telegraph

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Many of the negatives from the French holiday of 1985 are in black and white Ilford film. This was my favourite in the dark ages of the early 1980s when I printed my own work in monochrome with chemicals in the blacked out kitchen makeshift darkroom. I scanned another batch today.

A useful prop in the garden of the gite, were the cartwheels.

They worked on their own, or as a backdrop for Sam’s poking about in the water.

The nearby woodlands offered contrasting light,

and lengthening shadows across the roads.

During the process of producing this post, I realised, on gazing out of the window, that a jackdaw had heard on the telegraph that I was working in black and white, and helpfully posed, perching on a pole, cocking its head to make sure that it had heard aright.

Anyone who has followed my technical problems ever since I uploaded Mac’s new operating system will be relieved to learn that this work was done on that machine. This morning, I received an update from Apple which seems to have ironed out a few problems. Don’t get too excited, but do watch this space.

This evening we dined at Lal Qilla in Lymington. We received the usual very warm welcome, excellent food, and friendly, attentive, service. My meal was king prawn Ceylon and Jackie’s chicken Haryali. We shared a naan, special fried rice, and a caulliflower bahji, and both drank Kingfisher.

I Guess I Will Never Know

Becky has pointed out that Jackie’s hand is reflected in the eye of the donkey in ‘Close Encounters Of The Asinine Kind’. I have added a postscript to this effect.

We are doing our best to learn the myriad of bird calls we hear in the garden. When they are all sounding at once it is difficult to separate them. So, when setting out this morning to walk to Roger’s field and back, and hearing a single note ‘chuff’ from a large black bird perched on North Breeze roof, I used my camera as an aid to identification. Zooming in on this distant creature revealed it to be a jackdaw. I have often noticed that this device has a keener eye than we do.

In our garden we now have:

wallflowers,

spirea,

fritillaria,

and more tulips,

yellow versions of which brighten the front garden.

The small front garden did not receive much attention last year, as we concentrated on the larger back one. Jackie did, however, train a rambling rose along the fence. This is now covered in new shoots.

And greenfly. When I showed the head gardener this crop, she vowed immediate vengeance.

Jackie has also positioned for planting a jasmine, obviously forced into early blooming by the supplier.

Because Christchurch Road, once a gentle country thoroughfare, is now a busy link between Lymington and Christchurch, our refuse bags are collected from the front of the house early in the morning before the traffic builds up. Should we forget to put them out on Wednesday evening, we have the option of placing them on Downton Lane where they are picked up later in the morning.

Today, wildlife had got to them before the refuse collectors.

Ragged robin is beginning to festoon the lane,

where dandelions converse with primroses.

The preponderance of yellow in the hedgerows is now being challenged by the white of:

blackthorn,

cow parsley,

and daisies.

This afternoon, from the end of the back drive, I noticed a woman, a mobile device in each hand, wandering, perplexed, around the pub car park. I asked if she needed any help. She said she was playing a game. Thanks to Louisa, I realised that this was geocaching, described by Wikipedia as:

‘an outdoor recreational activity, in which participants use a Global Positioning System (GPS) receiver or mobile device and other navigational techniques to hide and seek containers, called “geocaches” or “caches”, anywhere in the world.

A typical cache is a small waterproof container containing a logbook (with a pen or pencil). The geocacher enters the date they found it and signs it with their established code name. After signing the log, the cache must be placed back exactly where the person found it. Larger containers such as plastic storage containers (Tupperware or similar) or ammunition boxes can also contain items for trading, usually toys or trinkets of little financial value, although sometimes they are sentimental. Geocaching shares many aspects with benchmarking, trigpointing, orienteering, treasure-hunting, letterboxing, and waymarking.’

I told the woman I couldn’t be much help with the technicality, but I was sure my granddaughters Jessica and Imogen would have been useful, because they love the pastime.

The Royal Oak telephone number provided one clue which led to the next, being a box marked 5. Now, the bin bags I had photographed earlier belonged to number 5 Downton Lane, almost opposite the car park, but my acquaintance saw no box. She had the option of turning left down the lane, or right in the direction of Hordle Lane. She chose the latter. Later, pondering, as you do, I remembered that my neighbours had twin drives and another set of gates.

Had I missed the opportunity of being a brilliant hero? I had to go and check, and, sure enough, the other, more concealed gates bore a letter box numbered 5. There was, however, no waterproof container to be seen. I guess I will never know.

When Jackie returned this evening from Mr Pink’s with his perfect fish and chips, to which we added pickled onions and mushy peas, she announced that she had pushed the boat out. This did not mean that she had made her own fishing trip, but that, by buying three pieces of cod and one portion of chips, she had spent slightly more than usual. She did this because we have never managed to consume two complete bags of the shop’s plentiful fried potatoes. Jackie drank Hoegaarden whilst I abstained.

A Game Of Peep-Bo

As I put out the bin bags at dawn this morning, the smoking fire further East down Christchurch Road revealed itself to be a blazing sun emerging to presage the splendid day we were to enjoy.

A little later, a crouching figure was seen to dart across to my desk and scamper back again. This was Flo, having risen surprisingly early to commandeer my camera for the next hour or so.

She must have got the bug yesterday for she was to produce some even more successful pictures of our garden birds.

Here is a selection of her work:

A thrush on the rooftop projected its shadow into the ether. How this shot was achieved will be revealed tomorrow, for the benefit of those who haven’t worked it out.

She captured house sparrows, both female

and male.

The collared dove had found a new perch.

Flo interrupted a jay’s breakfast, but it carried on regardless.

A female greenfinch continued with hers

while her consort launched himself from the feeder.

A blackbird ignored the spider’s web beneath it.

Starlings are notoriously greedy beasts. Alone they must wait their turn at the trough.

An inquisitive robin removed its head from the feeder, straightened up, and engaged in a game of peep-bo.

Finally a jackdaw snaffled two peanuts

and, of course, flew off at the sight of the camera.

When the Canon SX700 HS was returned to me I took a hobble down the garden and a few yards into Downton Lane.

Our honesty is now in flower,

as is the epimedium

and the skimmia at the entrance to the back drive.

The lane itself has a profusion of

primroses,

celandines,

cowslips,

daisies,

and grape hyacinths.

This evening we dined on Jackie’s superb chicken jalfrezi (recipe), boiled egg curry, egg fried rice (recipe), and paratas. Jackie, Ian, and I drank Kingfisher; Becky drank rose; and Flo, J2O.

The Jackdaw

As I ambled along to the post box alongside Ivy Cottages, I realised that I had, in an earlier post, misinformed my readers about the visibility of Ashley Clinton Manor tower from Christchurch Road.

Such is the serpentine nature of the A337, that, although Angel Lane is on the left, looking across the fields to the right the tower is clearly visible from this point, although a little further along foliage, when clothing the now naked trees will obscure it.

All my life I have struggled to find an armchair high enough off the floor for comfort, but only comparatively recently have needed to use my hands to prise myself out of it.

My favourite Edwardian chair, when not occupied by the Emsworth family, has always suited me well.

Because of the nature of the majority of the shops in Highcliffe High Street, when I first visited this town I quipped that I was not ready for it. Now, realising that perhaps I am, we continued our chair search, and found just the job in Fergusson’s House Clearance. The chosen item is the second that can be seen in the shadows of the shop doorway.

Perched high up under the eaves of Highcliffe Watchmakers in Waterford Road, a jackdaw fixed its beady eyes on us. It blended in so well with the woodwork that, had Jackie not spotted it and its mate in the guttering, I might have missed it. This shop also sells jewellery, and since jackdaws are noted jewel thieves, these birds were probably waiting to slip in behind another customer opening the door, so they could nip inside and snaffle something shiny. ( When posting daily you need a bit of luck, don’t you? )

Our evening meal didn’t quite go according to plan.

Our old friend Tony visited us this afternoon. He expected to leave after a couple of hours to return to Chelmsford via Petersfield. After this we thought we might go out somewhere. Unfortunately Tony couldn’t start his car and had to embark upon a series of telephone calls to initiate a recovery process. Whilst this was going on Jackie volunteered to go out to fetch a takeaway.

Then…………Ah……..

Tony’s immobilised vehicle was blocking her in.

He didn’t have the appropriate insurance cover for recovery, so he had to stay the night and hope Downton Service Station could resolve the problem in the morning.

So we enjoyed a superb omelette stuffed with peppers, mushrooms, and onions; chips; peas; baked beans; and rice pudding. Jackie drank a low alcohol rose and Tony and I finished the Bordeaux Superieur.