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Saturday 6 April 2013

A-Z Challenge 2013 - 'F'- Foxglove




 My A-Z posts this year are based on my garden – flowers, animals, the birds and the bees, butterflies - with a bit of poetry thrown in. For some letters I am expecting to cheat somewhat – wishing they were here.

F - Fieldfare, Foxglove, Fuschia, Fern, Frog, Fox

From time to time we see a bird easily mistaken for a Spring songster
Fieldfare
 Or flocking fieldfares, speckled like the thrush,
Picking the berry from the hawthorn bush,
That come and go on Winter’s chilling wing,
And seem to share no sympathy with Spring.

It will be some months yet before the digitalis rise,

Foxgloves (Digitalis)
Through quaint obliquities I might pursue
These cravings; when the foxglove, one by one,
Upwards through every stage of the tall stem,
Had shed beside the public way its bells,

Or this shrub shows such blooms:

Fuschia blooms

And the glorious rose with her flushing face,
And the fuschia with her form of grace,

It isn’t always flowers that catch your eye among the flowers; fiddler's elbows can be quite striking even though they don’t raise a sound.

Bracken (Fiddler's elbows)
The young of this years spawning will appear among the shrubs usually in June. How soon will it be before they go a wooing too?


 I have yet to meet this cunning fellow in the garden, but elsewhere it is not uncommon

Urban Fox (in a Birmingham garden)
 Who
Wears the smartest evening dress in England?
Checks his watch by the stars
And hurries, white-scarfed
To the opera
In the flea-ridden hen-house
Where he will conduct the orchestra?

Poems:
  • Fieldfare – John Clare, The Shepherd’s Calendar, March
  • Foxglove – from The Prelude – Wordsworth
  •  Fuschia – Harriet Annie Wilkins, A Song of the Flowers
  • Fox – Ted Hughes

Photo attributions:
  • Fieldfare – Feb 2012; By nottsexaminer; upload by Fae – CC BY-SA 2.0
  • Fuschia – By Ron Saunders from Warrington, UK – CC BY-SA 2.0
  • Fox – By Oosoom – CC BY-SA 3.0

10 comments:

aw said...

Intrigued to see what you will post each day, Bob. think those Fiddlers Elbows are really beautiful.So sculptural. Just shows you don't always need lots of bright colours.
Ann

ScotSue said...

I have just found your A-Z postings and am enjoying your theme. You are right in your comment on Sepia Saturday about making the right choice. I have bitten off more than I can chew with "A Sense of Place" as both the photographs and research are taking me ages to pull together and the posts are probably too long. Still I am enjoying the task, as long as I can keep up with the pace!

Jo said...

Bob,, those young fiddle ferns make an excellent vegetable. They sell for a small fortune in the spring here.

Interesting selections again, never heard of a field fare.

JO ON FOOD, MY TRAVELS AND A SCENT OF CHOCOLATE

Bish Denham said...

Lovely, the ferns in particular. The nursery rhyme/sogn is not one I'm familiar with. Alas poor Froggie, I knew him well....

Kristin said...

I think this is a good theme. But after reading ScotSue's comment, I am trying to find what you said...where is it?

Inger said...

What a lovely post!

Kate said...

What a gorgeous fox! I would love to see him in my garden.

Bob Scotney said...

@Kristin - my comment is at the beginning of my Sepia Saturday post, Arthur's Castles. Basically I abandoned my intended theme on King Arthurs on A-Z because I had too much material and posts would have been far to long.

Cassmob (Pauleen) said...

Love the fox and his poem. I've seen fuschias but not the others.

Pauleen at Tropical Territory
A to Z 2013
(and Sepia Saturday)

Hilary Melton-Butcher said...

Hi Bob .. great picture of the Fieldfare - handsome bird. The foxglove and fuschia remind me so much of Cornwall .. the foxgloves as they poked out of the dry stone walls and the fuschias .. as so many hedges in Cornwall are of fuschia type ..

Great shots - and the foxes roam here .. love the frog too ..

Cheers Hilary