Thursday 11 April 2019

April Nature Table

We always had a nature table at primary school, everyone walked to school some had a mile and a half to and from. Just half a mile for us but the road verges  had all sorts of interesting things so the nature table was always full.

This is my nature table, although mostly virtual because its not a good idea to pick wild flowers any more and my photography isn't good enough to catch birds way up in the air.

First some Pheasant feathers


We called these Shirt buttons but the proper name is Greater Stitchwort.
These were so common back in the 60's not quite so numerous now, but there are a few on the road verges close to home

Cowslips aren't as prolific as primroses but there are a few down the road from home


Skylarks..................... 
I can almost always hear them singing way up above the field beside my meadow. Sometimes it's possible to work out where they are but too high for photos. When I walked the footpath across the field on Monday,


  I spotted 3 all singing and rising vertically. The clip below isn't mine, I've borrowed it from
from youtube

 
Also on my Monday walk I zoomed in on something singing heartily from the top of a dead tree, which I think might have been a Linnet.




I wonder what will be on my May Nature table? (it's another way of filling a blog post!)

Thank you to everyone for frothy coffee comments yesterday and hello and welcome to new followers.


Back Tomorrow
Sue

43 comments:

  1. I like your virtual nature table! It's original and this time of the year nature is certainly bountiful. Everything is really green and beautiful in your area now.

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    1. We need some rain here now to keep things green

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  2. WHat a beautiful nature table. I used to have one too and the children brought in so many interesting things for it.
    xx

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    1. I thought it would make a good idea for a regular blog post!

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  3. The Skylark has a lovely song - even here on our estate we have a wealth of bird song this morning.

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    1. I can always hear them - often too high to see.

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  4. I've never seen so many primroses as I have this year. X

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  5. We had a nature table too, and during the summer holidays my brothers and I created our own at home. It normally included a stickleback or two fished from the River Rom in a jam jar which survived for about a week. I wonder if they still swim where we used to collect them.

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    1. We always collected tadpoles but always too many so they ended up eating each other!

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  6. I love just to stop, look and listen. Walking my furry black friend this morning had to stop and gaze up into a wild cherry with goldfinches darting in and out then a bit further on a thrush was belting out in the top of a conifer down a footpath I hadn't tried before. Delightful.

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    1. I love to see goldfinches on my niger seed feeders

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  7. Lovely. I remember nature walks and the nature table from my junior school, the walk into the woods was close to the village school. We used to bring specimens back, the flowers and twigs would be placed in water filled milk bottles or jam jars and labelled other items laid on the table and labelled, drawings of them would go on the wall behind. It's a lovely memory:)

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    1. We didn't have nature walks - there were only two teachers in the little school so I guess it wasn't feasible

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  8. Didn't Country Living run the Nature Table campaign to try to restore this to schools? Such a good idea, and I love seeing your virtual table!

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  9. I love your Nature Table I always pick up feathers. I remember when my Carol was a brownie or guide and was doing her collectors badge and she picked flowers and pressed them and wrote the names down and put them into a book (I am sure it is still about somewhere - it would be 40 years now) it was a lovely holiday and we all lea not a lot that year, of course now you must not pick flowers now.
    Hazel c uk

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    1. We used to press flowers and then forget which book we'd put them in!

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  10. We also had a nature table at school which must have been a part of the curriculem back then. Our walk to school was through the village so there wasn't much to find, but one of our lessons, if it was fine, was to go to a country lane near the school and find things for the table. There was always great excitement about being out of class and competing with one another as to what we could find.

    I love cowslips and prefer them to primulas, don't know why. I also love nature in all its forms being tame or being wild.

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  11. I used to love helping fill the nature table at primary school, and I lived in inner city Manchester. There were still things to collect though, feathers, pebbles, little branches, snippets from gardens and little creatures.

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    1. Sticky buds from the Horse chestnuts were favourites

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  12. Schools didn't need a curriculum in the 1940s and 50s; they taught with common sense and followed their instincts and we came out the better for it.

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    1. I, for one agree, Rachel.

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    2. We had some pretty awful teachers at Primary school - old and waiting for retirement

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    3. They obviously got something right for you though.

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  13. I used to love collecting feathers as a child. I always wanted to do something with them, but could never think what though!

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  14. It is a Linnet. I have a nature table in my Shedudio. Feathers and snail shells mainly.

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  15. Every single day your posts are a joy and inspiration.
    Visiting sister in Woolpit tomorrow, ooh hope I see some primroses and cowslips.
    Happy Easter Sue

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    1. Oh thank you, what a lovely comment. You might not see many flowers on the side of the A14 but should be several on the back roads

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  16. Patricia (in West Suffolk)11 April 2019 at 18:57

    Your mention of shirt buttons took me right back to country walks with my Mum and Grandma. They had names for so many of the flowers (as you say much more prolific then) but one I particularly remember was bread & cheese for what I now know is common mallow. They used to eat the little heads, in fact I think there were various things they used to eat as we walked along but I'd be very reluctant to do that now!

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    1. I thought bread and cheese was the tiny new hawthorn leaves! Primrose flowers are supposed to be sweet - but I haven;t tried them

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  17. We used to have lovely names for the common wildflowers didn't we Sue.

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  18. What a lovely post. I saw my first robin on Tuesday so hopefully Spring will show up sooner or later - we had snow flurries today so winter is still not finished with us just yet!

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  19. Love the virtual nature table. Like Margie we are seeing our first robins this week.

    God bless.

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  20. I well remember the Nature Table at our school - and having to open all the windows when it was Autumn, and "Toadstools" had to be brought in, and Trish and I found a particularly ripe specimen of Stinkhorn!!!

    I taught my children nature study but I think Tam is the only one who still has an interest in that direction.

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  21. I love the idea of a nature table! I keep my finds on the window sills all winter, only clearing the treasures off to their jars each spring when I do the big window wash and put in the screens. This year my collection is mostly pebbles and $1.06 in coins; the seaglass seems depleted, perhaps we have scavenged it all?

    lizzy at gone to the beach...

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  22. I love to hear the song of birds but I must confess that I do not always identify them correctly. Beautiful song of the Skylark!

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