This colourful user friendly booklet, based on the biodiversity survey undertaken at Shingle Street last year, has now been published and early sales are going well. Proceeds will be used to protect this special area.
The photographs are stunning and supplied by local photographers.
The booklet can be ordered online through the website.
www.shinglestreetsurvey.org.uk for £4.95 plus p+p.
A second publication ‘Life on the Edge: a Brief History of Shingle Street’ is due out at the end of June.
Meet Philip the pheasant. He seems to have adopted our garden. He enjoys collected the scraps from the bird feeders under the plum tree. He certainly likes showing off!
This was taken one morning from my kitchen window. Apologies for the questionable composition – I didn’t want to get too close to the window in case he flew off.
Oxley Dairy has been blessed with the sight of spring lambs growing from a few weeks old, gaining confidence, going on adventures.
At first, they stayed close to mum then gradually they teamed up with another lamb close by getting braver. Although mum did become very vocal if they drifted too far, especially in the evening at ‘bedtime’.
By the time they were ready to be moved to another pasture, some of the lambs were in gangs of 7-10 charging up and down the field then running to the top of a muck heap in the corner then back down again playing ‘follow my leader’. The funniest thing was watching the littlest one who couldn’t keep up, stopping half way and waiting for the gang to come back then tagging on the end again!
Our friend Cheryl came down and patiently waited to get a good picture of the hares. Lovely to find one resting but ever alert. Cheryl said that the eye was on her the whole time! She saw three in total. She is coming back to try and get one of them boxing. I’ll post the pic when she manages it!
We had a bit of a scare when the daffodils came out early and then we had a big frost. They all fell over! Thankfully the day improved with decent sunshine and they perked up again.
We are enjoying the longer days at last. Shingle Street has been alive with kite-surfers, walkers, and bird-watchers.
Our half-term visitors had great weather bar one morning – The Owls at Oxley is definitely a year round destination!
The local egrets have been enjoying the muddy patches in the fields once the seagulls have vacated the patch – great to see them wondering around. I will try and get close enough to get a decent picture to post.
Another beautiful afternoon at Shingle Street. Tea in the sun-room watching the dog-walkers on the beach and sea-walls with two lovely visitors. Thanks for the great feedback ladies!
o
January 1st 2016 – what a fabulous day ! We couldn’t have asked for better. And Shingle Street was the best place to spend it.
We were so pleased our Christmas and New Year visitors in the Owls had some lovely days and plenty of opportunities for walking.
One of our visitors rigged up a night camera on the drive to observe the badgers and was successful in seeing activity during the night. He also put fat balls on the little tree in the Barn Owl garden.
We have seen an increase in the variety of birds this week – tits and finches with swarms of seagulls over the sheeps’ field after the rains – lots of worms no doubt.
We are looking forward to sharing our wonderful part of the world with our 2016 visitors.
Diane and Chris
Wow. The autumn colour this year has been wonderful and uplifting. Driving from Oxley across Sutton Heath with the ferns and past Rendlesham Forest on the way to Woodbridge has been a joy. Even the A12 looked good!
Ditches have been cleared – its like we have a moat around the farm.
We are looking forward to the Christmas Fayres in the area – Woodbridge Mammoth Christmas Street Fair – 6th December 10-4pm on the Thoroughfare and Cumberland Street.
On 12th December there is the Woodbridge Festive Market on Market Hill.
The stillest day – 25th November 2015
Shingle Street came alive last Saturday when the cafe of bygone years was recreated as part of a fund raiser for the protection of the local area. Alongside the vintage cars, hundreds of visitors enjoyed the BBQ, homemade cakes, ice cream and lots of cups of tea. Around £2,500 was raised – such a fantastic team effort from everyone.
After a wonderfully busy summer for Barn Owl and Little Owl, we are scheduling maintenance in the quiet spells and tidying the gardens etc ready for the winter.
Well, this little chap decided he wasn’t keen on the papparazzi taking his photo judging by the expression in the second photo! My brother-in-law took this outside our sunroom in July. We have seen the Little Owls quite a few times this year which we are delighted about.
There is a large biodiversity survey going on in the area at the moment covering butterflies and moths; birds; reptiles etc. Some results should be in later in the year. For more information go to www.shinglestreetsurvey.org.uk.
Our latest visitors in Barn Owl report daily sightings of five hares in the field (except the day and night it rained the whole time!) and different butterflies and caterpillers so we will feed this into the survey.
Sheep aplenty with the lambs growing beautifully and Holly and Smokey in the paddocks outside Barn and Little Owls – all is well at Oxley Dairy.
