It's Raining, It's Pouring (2020, week 2)

It's been a quiet week with little to report. There has been lots of overnight rain, raising the Parish Brook and leaving the water full of silt. The gateways are getting even more treacherous - the soil has a lot of clay which means that when it gets wet it gets slippery. Very slippery. And as people look for alternative paths the grass gets worn away and the area of mud expands. In places the fields are completely waterlogged, and you slosh as you walk across the grass. Basically, it's wet.

Muddy gateway between fields 124 and 125

It's also rather mild. So mild that there are plants in flower. The white dead nettle hasn't stopped flowering, I just forgot to mention it in my last post. It normally flowers until December but here it is, still going strong in January. It's around in several places but the largest flowering clump is on the North Drive between the turn-off for the Middle Drove and the barn.

White dead nettle in flower

More surprisingly is a hogweed that I found in flower this morning (14/01/2020). It's a very short specimen, located on the island. It's flowering well despite the normal flowering period being between June and October. I think the sheltered position and warm weather has given it the confidence to flower this early.

Hogweed in flower 14/01/2020

There's still very few birds around. Swans, egrets, black-headed gulls, crows. A couple of cormorants have flown overhead but too far away to definitively ID. I saw a moorhen this morning which I was pleased about. I'm sure they're around but I rarely see them as they keep to the undergrowth along the drainage ditches rather than the main rhynes.