The Oxhill News

Oxhill

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Contents

Quotations
Editorial
Poetry Corner
Service Times
Food for thought
First Aid
Open Gardens
Village Hall AGM
Tysoe W.I.
Chapel Closure (1)
Chapel Closure (2)
Rachel replies
Oxhill Childhood
Broadband Internet
Shipston Nursing Home
Tysoe Record
Nature Notes
Dolphin
Dangerous Bales
Correspondence
25 Years Ago
Garden Club
Village Hall

Nature Notes

June:  The midsummer month named after Juno, the great Roman goddess of the moon, of women, and of childbirth.

Summer is well and truly here and the countryside is an exuberant carpet of green.  Wildflowers are springing up and fledglings abound.  I mentioned some months ago the small flock of long-tailed tits visiting out nut-hanger, but the other morning as I was crossing the footbridge to the long meadow behind the church, I became aware of boisterous bird chitter-chatter and realised I was in the middle of a small flock of these delightful birds feeding their first flight of fledglings.  I counted five fledglings and approximately eight to ten adults, who ignored me as they dashed backwards and forwards feeding their young.  They were so close that I could have touched them, and one fledgling was not more than 12 inches from my head.  They are the daintiest of the tit family, the adults being no more than the size of a golf ball, but the fledglings were no larger than a spherical ten pence piece with a long tail sprouting from the back.  They build a beautiful nest of a globe of feathers, moss, fur and any other soft material with a tiny entrance hole, all bound together with cobwebs and covered with lichen.  In Warwickshire in the 1920s and 30s these were known as Bum Barrel’s nests, the Bum Barrel being a local name for this pretty little bird, along with Buttermilk Can!

June is probably the best month for wildflowers and one of my passions is for orchids.  Unfortunately this part of Warwickshire is not a good spot for orchids, so I sometimes go to Oxfordshire and Berkshire to see them.  However, if you go up Lady Elizabeth’s hill out of Tysoe towards Epwell, half way up on the left-hand bend there is a large piece of verge (with the road salt barrel on it) and by mid June you can see a large group of Common Spotted Orchids.  As the name suggests, it is the commonest of the wild orchids, but nevertheless a real treat to see. 

 June 21^st is the Summer Solstice and the longest day of the year.  Seek out St John’s Wort against Midsummer Eve (June 23^rd) whose night is one of the most uncanny and dangerous of the year!  “The virtue of St John’s Wort is this, if it be put in a man’s house, there shall come no wicked spirite therein” – Bauckes Herbal, 1525.

Grenville Moore  

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Last modified: November 29, 2003