Flying flowers.

I have typed up many a post for Will’s Turned Stones these last months but all in my imagination. Let’s reclaim one of them this evening!

A week or so ago I was sitting in the L’Arche garden at Saint Mildred’s, staring at this forsythia, golden in the sun. I had just given a rooted, flowering cutting to one of the houses but still had this one to enjoy.

Of a sudden, a bunch of the flowers took off and flew along the hedgerow. It was a brimstone butterfly, one of the first heralds of spring in the insect world. This one at rest looks like a beech leaf, but in flight is bright yellow, like the forsythia, even more so when the sun is shining through its wings.

A special moment to be grateful for.

Image by Holger Krisp on wikicommons

Mrs Turnstone’s good news for Valentine’s.

Well, we’ve always thought of Valentine’s Day as the birds’ wedding day, but this year the bouquet goes to the garden frogs. Mrs Turnstone ran indoors to grab her phone and record the event. We shall have to watch the weather and protect the eggs from frost, if we get any. It is unusually warm. But we have had lying snow in February, half a lifetime ago.

At least we can do a bit for the climate by helping the frogs who choose our pool. That may include covering it to prevent the blackbirds from fishing.

A New Year’s Promise

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The hazel we planted a few years ago on a scrap of waste land was not in flower on New Year’s Day, but yesterday it had shaken out the first lambs’ tails. Can Spring be far behind?

A peaceful and prosperous New Year to each and every reader! God bless,

Will.

A Christmas Rose

Mrs Turnstone’s delight in the flowering of her white hellebore (or Christmas rose) is worth sharing.

Boxing day is not too late to wish you a very happy Christmas and a peaceful and prosperous New Year.

Will Turnstone.

Winter’s Gold

Mrs Turnstone and I were in Southwell, Nottinghamshire, where we went to see the Mediaeval carved leaves in the Cathedral. The garden of the ruined Palace of the Archbishops of York has been planted to accompany the stone leaves, but this post is about a tree that does not appear inside: the Larch. It appears here as a flame, as its needles turn from green to gold.

The needles close-up. It won’t be long before they fall to the ground; this is the only deciduous conifer in Europe. It is equally beautiful when the new needles appear in spring.

The spider finds a home

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The wall is not going to win prizes for its brickwork, but the cracks and crevices provide shelter for many creatures including a trapdoor spider. It’s probably hibernating a few centimetres back from the doorway.

Autumn Rains

The autumn rains swelled the river which runs left to right behind the iron fence in this picture. The water wasn’t deep enough to close the park but there were near-perfect reflections of the bench and bushes on this windless morning, earlier this week.

Aglais Io

Opened
it lay before me on the path:
earth’s lightest book —
it has but two pages.
Filled with wonder I read its magic signs.
Then it ascended into the air.
No apocalypse.
Only a couple of words from summer’s
secret revelation:
Aglais io, peacock butterfly.

Christine Busta (1915–1987)

 Photograph: Didier Descouens – Own work; copied from wikipedia.

Thank you to Bishop Erik Varden for sharing this poem on his Coram Fratribus blog.

The hawks’ return

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It was i July last year that I met this sparrowhawk on our city street. I guess it was a young bird, as the intruding magpie seemed to flummox him until I came on the scene. Hawk and prey into the brambles, magpie off to scavenge elsewhere. And I into town.

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In the year since then, disaster befell the hawk. About 30 metres from this picture, taken by the back gate of a plumber’s merchant’s warehouse, the hawk was found dead by the showroom door, its breast ripped apart by another predator.

We thought it most likely he had swooped down on another little bird and hit the plate glass window at speed, breaking his neck. A handful of neighbours at least mourned his passing.

Two days ago a partly dismembered collared dove lay on the pavement not far from the original encounter. As long as a certain neighbour continues to feed the birds so generously, I think we can say we have our sparrowhawk back!

2 Beauties

These two were in the leaf litter under the sage bush clinging onto that big leaf. No blackbird or thrush around to gobble them up and no crops for them to devour. A few sage leaves went into the evening risotto, and rosemary, but no parsley or thyme!