A Week on the Estate: Late Blossom, Tiny Cuckoos & Old Posts

We’ve yet to hear our first cuckoo of the year, but the cuckoo of the insect world can be glimpsed in gardens and flower meadows if you’ve got sharp eyes. The bee-fly (Bombylius major) is a parasitic bee mimic. It exploits its markings by slipping into the nests of solitary bees, laying its eggs and leaving its young to be fed by worker bees. The bee-fly’s fearsome proboscis is only used for sipping nectar, and it hovers in the style of a hummingbird while it feeds.

On the land, some tough old posts and rails were knocked back in following recent work to clean and improve drainage ditches. We think the posts were supplied and installed by Calders & Grandidge of Boston back in the 1960s. Let’s hope they’ve got another sixty years in them. Nearby, new gates for cattle and walkers have been installed by Steve and his team from Ketsby Sawmill.

We doff our caps to the hardy souls who took to our walking trails during a traditional British Bank Holiday weekend of cold, wet weather. Next time you visit the estate for a walk, make sure you enjoy a free cuppa and snack at The Old School Tea & Coffee Shop. Clarice kept a couple of our recyclable and compostable cups and turned them into homes for sunflowers.

Finally, thanks to those readers who submitted images of our walking trails for our photographic competition. Congratulations to Geoff Buller for his winning entry, a wide panorama taken on the Skipwith Stride which nicely shows off the textures and layers of our rolling landscape in all its seasonal glory.