Bring alongs:
Photos from the 2012 Wassail!!
Offers of fruit or apple cakes most welcome. This is a family event so please join us.
Dressing up to suit a pagan festival is optional.
More details and reminders as we approach the event date.
Peterborough and Cambridgeshire County Councils and Huntingdonshire District Council and recognised partners wish to spread the word about the Household Support Fund. The help available includes food or fuel vouchers, help with essential items such as children’s coats, blankets and much more.
Household Support Fund – Cambridgeshire County Council has further details.
Huntingdonshire District Council are supporting East Anglia’s Children’s Hospice again this year and will be collecting real Christmas trees for recycling in the PE28 area on Saturday 15th January.
For further details and to book your collection slot visit https://just-helping.org.uk/register-tree
The Household Recycling Centre will also take Christmas trees.
Our neighbours in Luddington have been playing host to thousands of starlings who deliver a rare treat each evening with their magnificent display of murmurations before dropping rapidly in to their chosen hedge to roost for the night. Here are photos and video taken on February 1st.
Luddington resident Carry Akroyd, a regular contributor to The Oldie magazine, has written a charming article for The Oldie blog (which we have permission to share). Read the article below.
Lockdown Three has been trying to the spirit, but a wonderful consolation in our east Northamptonshire village is the unexpected arrival of a starling murmuration; to my knowledge, in 30 years we have not seen the like.
Here is not typical of where one would expect to see them; just a few houses, hedges and paddocks in the middle of vast, intensive-arable fields.
The starlings may have abandoned their usual reedbed roost down in the flooded valley, and arbitrarily decided my neighbour’s hedge to be a drier alternative.
Shortly after sundown, groups of starlings arrive from various directions, and gradually form one or two large masses. Numbers have been building up over the last month and now there are hundreds – maybe thousands – impossible to count. They sweep in wide arcs over the village and the mouth must not be gaping at the wonder overhead, but kept firmly closed. One neighbour watches from her greenhouse, another was leaning out of the bedroom window to watch the entertainment and her cup of tea received a bonus.
Most of the remaining hedges around here are butchered by machines directly after harvest, even as early as August, removing the fruits that birds might feed on in winter. However, this chosen hedge is unusually semi-neglected, with thick brambles down one side offering protection from weather and predators. Hedgerow trees in the vicinity supply a waiting room for the early arrivals before they join the fly-pasts. When it snowed, all the birds sat in the trees, one by one dropping into the hedge to roost without preceding aerobatics.
Gradually, as the aerial display continues, the birds come slightly lower and closer together and form the impressive swirling shapes that make them the stars of nature programmes.
Performances vary each evening depending on wind direction and weather, always hypnotic and mesmerising. On one night, they suddenly bunched into tight fast-moving formations, creating astonishing, evolving shapes for nearly 10 minutes.
An impressive thing is the complete silence as they pass – only the whoosh of their wings like a wave on the shore.
Just before dark, they drop into the hedge in batches, sometimes seeming as if sucked by an invisible vacuum cleaner, at speed all landing in a noisy disturbance.
The hedge becomes crammed and the squabbling racket enormous. For half an hour, the chatting and shifting continues and then all becomes completely silent.
As January comes to a cold end with freezing nights and flurries of the white stuff, it’s difficult not to dream of warmer times and the promise of Spring. In some ways it’s a shame to let our thoughts wander forward too fast as the wood is looking quite spectacular in this cold weather. The hard work of volunteers who have cleared out the undergrowth in many areas means that you can now see the various forms of the young trees.
Nature always seems to be involved in a circle of birth, growth and death so perhaps it’s a good time to remember that January is named after the Roman god Janus, the god of beginnings and endings and the doorkeeper of the heavens. He’s often depicted as having two heads so could see backwards and forwards at the same time and perhaps we can apply that metaphor to the Jubilee Wood. Trees, plants and invertebrates may seem dormant at this time of year as we walk through its gateway, but we can already the signs of new growth as buds thicken on branches and new growth is forcing its way up from the ground.
The wood also played a part in the recent RSPB birdwatch, as volunteers sent in their sightings after a cold and windy weekend. It will be interesting to see how the bird population changes as the trees mature and the level of cover changes throughout the seasons. The Fieldfares are still to be seen as are chaffinchs, goldfinches, wrens and green woodpeckers along with the blackbirds, sparrows, jackdaws and bluetits to name just a few. It’s also easy to forget the red kites as we now see them so regularly over our gardens but what a wonderful sight they are. As they glide above , their calls fill the skies and we can watch their territorial acrobatics which have already started.
A big ‘thank you’ to the many volunteers who keep the Jubilee Wood healthy and accessible for our enjoyment. Whatever the year has in store for us it will always be a place of quiet enjoyment as well as an environment which is packed with life and variety. Just look at the two reports on the website about dragonflies/damselflies and moths in Jubilee Wood in 2018 to remind yourself of what’s to come!
Here’s a few aerial pictures of Great Gidding as Britain is being battered by icy weather this week by the polar vortex nicknamed “Beast From The East”. Although it looks fairly benign the temperatures have plummeted to minus 10 degrees and below.
Video: Paul Crank
North along Main Street with the Village Hall in the foreground
South west along Main Street with St Michael’s Church in the background
Looking towards the east with the Mill in the background
South along Main Street with Winwick in the distance
South along Main Street – the low sun and snow cover highlight the possible outline and position of the old Manor House in the field on the right
Jubilee Wood
Jubilee Wood
Main Street from the Jubilee Wood
Jubilee Wood with allotments on the left
Main Street from the Jubilee Wood
Allotments in the snow
View more aerial photos of the Giddings
Exciting news from the Jubilee Wood maintenance “team” – a new path has been cut adjacent to the first seat at the entrance to the wood. This has been done to add a bit of variety to the visitor experience. Hidden along the path are a couple of seating areas . We hope you enjoy your walk around and through the wood.
The following photographs were taken on the 28/12/17 after the second snowfall in December. Not that unusual as a meteorological event but quite unusual given the mild winters of the past few years.
The Gidding Gobblers Café will be open on…
…for the first of our seasonal open days.
Alongside our delicious cakes (including our very popular bitter chocolate cake) we’ll be serving warming soup and a roll. Whether you are a cyclist or non-cyclist – all are welcome. See you there!!
Don’t forget to like our Facebook page….
www.facebook.com/giddinggobblers/
