Black Bourn Valley
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Black Bourn Valley
Black Bourn Valley, formerly called Grove Farm, is an 88 hectare nature reserve between Thurston and Elmswell in Suffolk. It is managed by the Suffolk Wildlife Trust. The River Black Bourn runs through this large nature reserve, which has many bird species, such as barn owls, yellowhammers, linnets, reed buntings and skylarks. Plants in wet meadows include marsh orchids and marsh marigolds. The river has reportedly dried up during the 2022 European drought During the summer of 2022, parts of Europe experienced drought conditions exacerbated by heat waves. On 9 August, a senior European Commission researcher said it seems to be Europe's worst year in 500 years. A report from the Global Drought Ob .... There is access by going east out of Thurston along Barrell's Road, and turning south at the end. The entrance to the site, shown on the Ordnance Survey map and on the site as Grove Farm, is on the left just before the railway line. References {{Authority contr ...
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Thurston, Suffolk
Thurston is a village and a parish in Suffolk situated about east of Bury St Edmunds and west of Stowmarket. In mid-2005, Thurston's estimated population was 3,260, making it one of the larger communities in the area, falling slightly to 3,232 at the 2011 Census. Thurston railway station opened in 1846 and is still operating today. The village also has a frequent bus service to neighbouring towns, including Bury St Edmunds. The village is located under from the A14 and under from the M11 motorway. History The village is recorded in the Domesday Book as having a population of 66 households. It was part of the lands of the Abbey of Bury St Edmunds, then one of the largest landlords in England. Thurston was located in the middle of Thedwastre Hundred, an administrative district in the middle ages. The town sign depicts a tree, representing "Theodwards’s tree". This tree may have been the meeting place of the Hundred Court in Thedwastre Road, Thurston. By the 1870s, the vill ...
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Elmswell, Suffolk
Elmswell is a village and civil parish in the county of Suffolk, England.OS Explorer map 211: Bury St.Edmunds and Stowmarket Scale: 1:25 000. Publisher:Ordnance Survey – Southampton A2 edition. Publishing Date:2008. It is situated halfway between Bury St. Edmunds and Stowmarket and lies just to the north of the A14 road. The history of the village can be traced as far back as the Roman times based on a site containing a pottery kiln dated around the third century. According to the Oxford Dictionary of English Place-Names the origin of Elmswell or in its Old English form Elmswella, as referred to in the Domesday Book of 1086 comes from 'Spring or Stream where elm-trees grow. The place name Elmswella is formed by the conjunction of elm + wella, where wella is Old English for stream. A huge village green – Butten Haugh Green – once formed the centre of Elmswell. However, the arrival of the railway in 1846 and the bacon factory in 1911, meant the green now has houses built ...
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Suffolk
Suffolk () is a ceremonial county of England in East Anglia. It borders Norfolk to the north, Cambridgeshire to the west and Essex to the south; the North Sea lies to the east. The county town is Ipswich; other important towns include Lowestoft, Bury St Edmunds, Newmarket, and Felixstowe which has one of the largest container ports in Europe. The county is low-lying but can be quite hilly, especially towards the west. It is also known for its extensive farming and has largely arable land with the wetlands of the Broads in the north. The Suffolk Coast & Heaths and Dedham Vale are both nationally designated Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty. History Administration The Anglo-Saxon settlement of Suffolk, and East Anglia generally, occurred on a large scale, possibly following a period of depopulation by the previous inhabitants, the Romanised descendants of the Iceni. By the fifth century, they had established control of the region. The Anglo-Saxon inhabitants later b ...
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Suffolk Wildlife Trust
Suffolk Wildlife Trust (SWT) describes itself as the county's "nature charity – the only organisation dedicated wholly to safeguarding Suffolk's wildlife and countryside." It is a registered charity, and its headquarters is at Brooke House in Ashbocking, near Ipswich. It was founded in 1961,About us
, Suffolk Wildlife Trust. Retrieved 3 March 2014.
and is one of 46 covering the . As of March 2017, it has 13,200 members, and it manages of land in 60 nature reserves, most of whi ...
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River Black Bourn
A river is a natural flowing watercourse, usually freshwater, flowing towards an ocean, sea, lake or another river. In some cases, a river flows into the ground and becomes dry at the end of its course without reaching another body of water. Small rivers can be referred to using names such as creek, brook, rivulet, and rill. There are no official definitions for the generic term river as applied to geographic features, although in some countries or communities a stream is defined by its size. Many names for small rivers are specific to geographic location; examples are "run" in some parts of the United States, " burn" in Scotland and northeast England, and "beck" in northern England. Sometimes a river is defined as being larger than a creek, but not always: the language is vague. Rivers are part of the water cycle. Water generally collects in a river from precipitation through a drainage basin from surface runoff and other sources such as groundwater recharge, sp ...
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Barn Owl
The barn owl (''Tyto alba'') is the most widely distributed species of owl in the world and one of the most widespread of all species of birds, being found almost everywhere except for the polar and desert regions, Asia north of the Himalayas, most of Indonesia, and some Pacific Islands. It is also known as the common barn owl, to distinguish it from the other species in its family, Tytonidae, which forms one of the two main lineages of living owls, the other being the typical owls (''Strigidae''). There are at least three major lineages of barn owl: the western barn owl of Europe, western Asia, and Africa; the eastern barn owl of southeastern Asia and Australasia; and the American barn owl of the Americas. Some taxonomic authorities classify barn owls differently, recognising up to five separate species; and further research needs to be done to resolve the disparate taxonomies. There is considerable variation of size and colour among the approximately 28 subspecies, but most ...
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Yellowhammer
The yellowhammer (''Emberiza citrinella'') is a passerine bird in the bunting family that is native to Eurasia and has been introduced to New Zealand and Australia. Most European birds remain in the breeding range year-round, but the eastern subspecies is partially migratory, with much of the population wintering further south. The male yellowhammer has a bright yellow head, streaked brown back, chestnut rump, and yellow under parts. Other plumages are duller versions of the same pattern. The yellowhammer is common in open areas with some shrubs or trees, and forms small flocks in winter. Its song has a rhythm like "A little bit of bread and no cheese". The song is very similar to that of its closest relative, the pine bunting, with which it interbreeds. Breeding commences mainly in April and May, with the female building a lined cup nest in a concealed location on or near the ground. The three to five eggs are patterned with a mesh of fine dark lines, giving rise to the old ...
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Linnet
The common linnet (''Linaria cannabina'') is a small passerine bird of the finch family, Fringillidae. It derives its common name and the scientific name, ''Linaria'', from its fondness for hemp seeds and flax seeds—flax being the English name of the plant from which linen is made. Taxonomy In 1758, the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus included the common linnet in the 10th edition of his ''Systema Naturae'' under the binomial name, ''Acanthis cannabina''. The species was formerly placed in the genus ''Carduelis'' but based on the results of a phylogenetic analysis of mitochondrial and nuclear DNA sequences published in 2012, it was moved to the genus ''Linaria'' that had been introduced by the German naturalist Johann Matthäus Bechstein in 1802. The genus name ''linaria'' is the Latin for a linen-weaver, from ''linum'', "flax". The species name ''cannabina'' comes from the Latin for hemp. The English name has a similar root, being derived from Old French ''linette'', fro ...
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Reed Bunting
The common reed bunting (''Emberiza schoeniclus'') is a passerine bird in the bunting family Emberizidae, a group now separated by most modern authors from the finches, Fringillidae. The genus name ''Emberiza'' is from Old German ''Embritz'', a bunting. The specific ''schoeniclus'' is from Ancient Greek ''skhoiniklos'', a now unknown waterside bird. It breeds across Europe and much of the Palearctic. Most birds migrate south in winter, but those in the milder south and west of the range are resident. It is common in reedbeds and also breeds in drier open areas such as moorland and cultivation. For example, it is a component of the purple moor grass and rush pastures, a type of Biodiversity Action Plan habitat in the UK. It occurs on poorly drained neutral and acidic soils of the lowlands and upland fringe. Taxonomy The common reed bunting was described by the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus in 1758 in the tenth edition of his ''Systema Naturae'' under the binomial name '' ...
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Alauda Arvensis
The Eurasian skylark (''Alauda arvensis'') is a passerine bird in the lark family, Alaudidae. It is a widespread species found across Europe and the Palearctic with introduced populations in New Zealand, Australia and on the Hawaiian Islands. It is a bird of open farmland and heath, known for the song of the male, which is delivered in hovering flight from heights of . The sexes are alike. It is streaked greyish-brown above and on the breast and has a buff-white belly. The female Eurasian skylark builds an open nest in a shallow depression on open ground well away from trees, bushes and hedges. She lays three to five eggs which she incubates for around 11 days. The chicks are fed by both parents but leave the nest after eight to ten days, well before they can fly. They scatter and hide in the vegetation but continue to be fed by the parents until they can fly at 18 to 20 days of age. Nests are subject to high predation rates by larger birds and small mammals. The parents can hav ...
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Wet Meadow
A wet meadow is a type of wetland with soils that are saturated for part or all of the growing season. Debate exists whether a wet meadow is a type of marsh or a completely separate type of wetland. Wet prairies and wet savannas are hydrologically similar. Wet meadows may occur because of restricted drainage or the receipt of large amounts of water from rain or melted snow. They may also occur in riparian zones and around the shores of large lakes. Unlike a marsh or swamp, a wet meadow does not have standing water present except for brief to moderate periods during the growing season. Instead, the ground in a wet meadow fluctuates between brief periods of inundation and longer periods of saturation. Wet meadows often have large numbers of wetland plant species, which frequently survive as buried seeds during dry periods, and then regenerate after flooding. Wet meadows therefore do not usually support aquatic life such as fish. They typically have a high diversity of plant speci ...
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Marsh Orchid
''Dactylorhiza'' is a genus of flowering plants in the orchid family Orchidaceae. Its species are commonly called marsh orchids or spotted orchids. ''Dactylorhiza'' were previously classified under ''Orchis'', which has two round tubers. Description They are hardy tuberous geophytes. In a thickened underground stem, they can store a large amount of water to survive arid conditions. The tuber is flattened and finger-like. The long leaves are lanceolate and, in most species, also speckled. They grow along a rather long stem which reaches a height of . Leaves higher on the stem are shorter than leaves lower on the stem. The inflorescence, compared to the length of the plant, is rather short. It consists of a compact raceme with 25-50 flowers. These develop from axillary buds. The dominant colors are white and all shades of pink to red, sprinkled with darker speckles. Taxonomy Etymology The name ''Dactylorhiza'' is derived from Greek words δάκτυλος ''daktylos'' 'finger' ...
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