ABC Wednesday - Nature in the Neighbourhood

No matter where your neighbourhood whether city, town or village, nature is in bloom. Cherry trees are at their peak; the pink ones are my favourite. This was one of two in the garden of an old house in Borwick, near Carnforth, Lancashire. It is only a small hamlet of about 200 souls which lies by the side of  Borwick Hall (an Elizabethan manor house, now an outdoor education centre) but it has some lovely old houses which settle round the green in such a way that a person with a camera could click away for hours.

Nature on a bridge, one of John Rennie's smaller aqueducts, lined with daffodils and a scattering of celendine.

Nature in a churchyard, St John the Evangalist, always known as Woodland Church is part of the Living Churchyards project, the dead necropolis providing a haven for native flora and fauna. As part of this scheme thousands of churchyards have been surveyed and are nurtured by local communities and wildlife trusts in cities, towns and countryside. By the gate of Woodland Church are a list and photographs of the species found both a celebration, a guide and an education.

Baptismal Font, Woodland Church

And churches always bring nature inside. 

Some parts of nature like the early flowering camelias are adored by gardeners

but some like this ancient plant are not.  The Common Horsetail making an early appearance, on the banks of the River Keer.  Looking like an alien invader, nothing like the branching plant it will become, hiding in the middle of bushes until it has become tall.

These plants are one of our oldest and have been here for millions of years and will probably still be here long after humankind have gone.

Gorse nestling in the corner of a field, in flower for most of the year, and so the saying "When gorse is in flower, kissings in season"

A coot nesting while seagulls nonchalantly perch. The park lake has this rather unsympathetic netting round the reeds, the Victorians who built the park would have come up with something much more artistic and elaborate, but it serves the purpose of protecting the nesting birds and flowering reeds from nautical types in rowing boats.

A large Number of other words beginning with the letter N are over at the ABC Wednesday meme.