Welcome to the Rudloe and environs website.
Here you will find news, articles and photos of an area that straddles the Cotswold Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty in north-west Wiltshire.
Contributions in the form of articles or photos are welcome. Even those with completely contrary views to mine!
Thanks to the website builder 1&1 and Rob Brown for the original idea.
Rudloescene now, in January 2014, has a sister, academic rather than anarchic, website about Box history here: http://www.boxpeopleandplaces.co.uk/
It contains thoroughly professional, well-researched articles about Box and its people.
Contact rudloescene through the 'Contact' page.
July 2022 - some summer projects have me tied to the house/garden but there are still views to be enjoyed even when confined to the domestic space. I've been trying to get a picture of a regular visitor (the hummingbird hawk moth) to our red valerian (Centranthus ruber). If I spot it, by the time I've retrieved the camera, it's gone. Hopefully, I'll catch it in the coming days...
After penning these words, I thought I would wander down to Rudloe Community Centre where significant clumps of red valerian are to be found beside the boundary wall of the car park. No luck though but I'm damned if there wasn't one on our valerian when I walked through the gate... phone out of pocket, key in that bloody ridiculous password, select camera, slide zoom facility to 6x and... somewhere at the start of all this faffing about, the beast was gone.
Here's the red valerian with no hummingbird hawk moth
This is the hummingbird hawk moth. Picture by Charles J Sharp of Sharp Photography. One of its preferred habitats is 'woodland edge with red valerian'. Well we have the red valerian and our garden mimics woodland edge.
Evening sky over Springfield Close
Evening sky over Springfield Close
Small part of the frequent evening migration from the Leafy Lane rookery south, first to the comms tower at Rudloe Fiveways then onwards. Around 11th July, there were many hundreds (all from Leafy Lane?) but their return is a mystery.
Here's one of the rooks on our TV aerial
Along with other neighbours, we've let parts of our lawns remain 'wild' with dandelion, clover, buttercup, selfheal (Prunella vulgaris) and some ragwort. Another mystery... why do most close up at night while others (ragwort) don't?
Last year, we had a wasps' nest in the porch roof; this year we have a bees' nest in the patio. There's a gap between the general patio level and a raised section - bees can be seen coming and going - spot the bee in the picture.
The short sojourn to Rudloe Estate in search of red valerian and the hummingbird hawk moth found me, irresistably, on a 'round trip' to the brow of Box Hill and Leafy Lane Wood - photos in the gallery below.
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