Even in a country as barren for wildlife as the UK, there are still some wildlife spectacles to be witnessed, and one of them is the drifts of BLUEBELLS that extend under our ancient woodlands. The couple of weeks which extend over late April and early May is the pinnacle time for which to come and see this little spectacle. In Ipswich the best place to see bluebells is Spring Wood, to the south of Chantry, bordering the A14. This wood forms part of the Belstead Brook series of nature reserves, a small river that flows through small reserves like Ashground Plantation, Bobbit's Lane meadow, and Bourne Reedbeds, places which I also visited today. This is a wild area of Ipswich, where you can get away from the houses and people that is the usual habitat and wildlife of this town.
Before I get to the bluebells, another sighting was the standout of the day, something quite different to the flowers. An OTTER, yes an OTTER, was seen today, the animal emerging from the brook, running across the path in front of me and disappearing into the thick undergrowth in the fraction of a second, a blink and you miss it event. Obviously this is my first record for Ipswich, and just shows how wild the area can be despite being on the edge of a large town. This was in Ashground Plantation, an area of alder carr which floods in winter from the brook which flows through. Also on the edge of the car park there a BAT was flying in broad daylight, a very strange sight indeed, of what species I don't know, the only way to tell them apart in flight is to use echolocation device things.
As usual the BLUEBELLS under Spring Wood put on an awesome display. Under the coppice carpets of blue unfolded before me. Spring Wood is an Ancient forest that has been in existence since records began, and for a town as old as Ipswich, its pretty old. Although it looks beautiful, the woods are not peaceful, being right next to the A14, Suffolk's busiest road, it suffers from the heavy din of traffic. Also here were some YELLOW ARCHANGEL, another ancient woodland flower, although just the odd flower, not in the numbers of the bluebells. I didn't take my DSLR camera, instead I used my Bridge Camera, and it really shows, when compared to the photos I took at Bradfield Woods, a previous post ago.
Spring Wood is buffered with the housing estates by Kiln Meadow, an are of scrubby grassland, which is attractive to birds. WARBLERS abound, with my first GARDEN WARBLER of the year, singing from an area of scrub, as well as lots of WHITETHROAT and BLACKCAP, and a cracking male BULLFINCH. In an area of mown grass COWSLIPS were growing in small numbers.
Bourne Reedbeds are a large stand of reeds, maybe the largest in south Suffolk, and like the rest of the area, a strange habitat to be found in Ipswich, something you would expect from a wilderness like Minsmere. Its just shows that nature can survive pretty much anywhere, its not too fussy, it just needs the right habitats and to be left alone. Here I heard my first REED WARBLERS of the year, their monotonous song competing with the more energetic SEDGE WARBLER and the explosive CETTI'S which were singing in small numbers, birds heard rather than seen.
Who would have thought there would be so much wildness in the town of Ipswich, a barren area of anonymous housing estates. Sure the wilderness exists on the edge of this town, but it still lies within sight of the housing estates that fill the town. It shows that nature can thrive anywhere, if we just let it, and that also some of our best remaining habitats exist in areas where they are under pressure, whether from the need to build houses, or nuclear power plants. No matter where the land lies, everything of worth to wildlife needs to be protected.
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