Birds at Lynford Arboretum
Lynford Arboretum is on the north side of Thetford forest and is well worth a visit as a beautiful walking area - if nothing else. However, it has made its name for the numbers of species of birds that it attracts, and this was the main reason why we made this visit.
The whole area, complete with Lynford Hall has an interesting history. The Hall is now an hotel, and we stayed there for one night to enable us to be on site reasonable early.
But, before the history - to the birds we photographed. The main bird that was on the agenda was a Crossbill, neither of us having seen one before.
We joined the `throng` in one particular area by the river bridge where they had been seen before. We waited, then went for a walk and then returned to wait some more! Finally success - although none too close. However, here is the image.
Although not uncommon, they are not the easiest birds to see. It is a chunky finch with a large head and bill which is crossed over at the tips. This crossed bill is used to extract seeds from conifer cones. They are most often encountered in noisy family groups or larger flocks, usually flying close to treetop height. It feeds acrobatically, fluttering from cone to cone.
While waiting and wandering, we also manage to photograph some other birds The area is beautiful and well away from the hustle of modern life. So suits our feathered friends.
Female Chaffinch on sentry duty!
Marsh Tit - is, as indicated by the name, a member of the tit family. (clever me)
Brambling, a plump-looking migratory bird, which is medium-sized (similar to the chaffinch) belongs to the Finches family. Its distinctive white rump and attractive orange breast makes it easy to spot
Nuthatches can be seen all year round in the UK. The majority of Nuthatches like to live in mature woodlands or parkland in central and southern England and Wales where food is plentiful. So not surprised to see them here.
The Dunnock is a small brown and grey bird. Quiet and unobtrusive, it is often seen on its own, creeping along the edge of a flower bed or near to a bush, moving with a rather nervous, shuffling gait, often flicking its wings as it goes. When two rival males come together they become animated with lots of wing-flicking and loud calling.
Song Thrush - high in a tree and singing.
Lynford Hall Hotel, from the `bottom of the garden`
Once one of the greatest estates in England, Lynford Hall was a serious contender for royal ownership. Its location in some of the best shooting country in East Anglia attracted the attention of Queen Victoria’s advisers, who in 1861 had been instructed to acquire a suitable property for her son, Edward Prince of Wales, although eventually they settled on Sandringham.
A few miles outside Thetford, the Lynford estate covered 8,000 acres and came complete with a brand new country house. Designed by the fashionable architect William Burn and partly modelled on the Elizabethan architecture of Hatfield House, Lynford Hall was very grand indeed. It had a lavish entrance and several reception suites, plus a total of 50 bedrooms and dressing rooms, with state-of the art fittings such as plumbed water supplies and gas-lighting piped from a private gasworks.
The hall had been commissioned by millionaire banker Stephens Lyne-Stephens, reputedly “the richest commoner in England”, who had inherited a family fortune based on glass manufacture in Portugal. He had paid £133,000 for the estate but deemed the existing mansion too small and suitable only as temporary accommodation.
Stephens had intended to settle at Lynford with his French wife Yolande Duvernay, an ex-dancer famed for her beauty. But fate intervened and while building work on the new house started in 1857, Stephens fell ill. His love of wine, tobacco and fine food eventually took its toll and he died in February 1860 at the age of 58. His widow faced a turbulent future. Not only was the house not finished – the couple had been waiting to move in – but Stephens’s death prompted a rash of claimants to his riches.
Finally, when all the mess was sorted, his widow moved into the recently completed hall. Memories of her husband were everywhere, not least in the stone lettering of his initials that adorned the parapets. After she died in 1894, Lynford Hall then passed through a series of owners until 1924, when the majority of the estate was sold to the Forestry Commission. As many acres as possible were planted with fast-growing conifers to help replace the country’s depleted timber stocks in the wake of the First World War.
A major fire gutted parts of the hall in 1928 and total demolition loomed but the main parts of the building were restored by a new leaseholder, Sir James Calder. A wealthy entrepreneur, Calder was very well-connected and during the Thirties Lynford was buzzing with the rich and famous. Visitors included Ernest Hemingway, who was said to have regularly propped up the hall’s bar.
Other guests included Joe Kennedy, American ambassador to Britain, who was accompanied on several occasions by his sons Jack and Bobby. Their time at Lynford marked the close of a golden autumn in the estate’s fortunes.
Someone has been busy with this carved tree in the Arboretum area.
Scarlet Elfcup (Sarcoscypha austriaca)
Canada Geese making their usual noisy presence heard and seen by the river.
A really beautiful area in and around the Arboretum which is well worth at least one visit. There are many walks, including toward Lynford Waters.
Lynford Water (opposite the Arboretum) is an area of flooded gravel pits in the Wissey valley now managed for recreation by the Forestry Commission, including an area of sandy beach. It is the closest the Brecks comes to having a seaside. 60,000 years ago it was a very different place, a chilly, open ‘mammoth steppe’ landscape with a very different wildlife and a population of Neanderthal humans. The evidence was found in an excavation here in 2002, at the eastern end of the site (see map on this site).
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