Letting Go of the Bay Leaf: May 2022

Sunday, May 22, 2022

Mosaic Monday #178: Broughton Castle

Trips to the UK are not complete without at least one castle, so here you go! Around 1300, Sir John de Broughton, a knight of King Edward I, built his manor house in a sheltered site at the junction of three streams and surrounded it with a substantial moat. The greater part of his house and the moat remain today.

William of Wykeham, Bishop of Winchester and Chancellor of England, bought the house in 1377, and since then it has been in the continuous ownership of the same family.

Sir Thomas Wykeham obtained a license to "crenellate and embattle" in 1406; he added the battlement walls to the gatehouse, thus giving the medieval house a military appearance. These changes allowed the manor house to be called a castle. Hey honey, can we crenellate and embattle the log house?

We had a specific time to tour the castle; having arrived early, we invested the time in walking the grounds. This flower was blooming in the high grass - it was new to me and I loved the unique texture. Can you see what look like scales or a checkered pattern? I learned later in the week that this is called Snake's Head Fritillary. Most often it is purple, but it sometimes appears in white, as you can see in the collage below.

Even with the rationed tour times, the number of visitors made it difficult to take pictures. Fortunately, my in-laws bought a pamphlet about the house, and I have it to remember the visit. My pictures, on the other hand, focused on 'artsy' elements of interest to me!

The chapel was not a room open to visitors, but you could take pictures of the stained glass through a squint in the north-east corner of Queen Anne's Room. The East Window contains stained glass from the 14th, 15th and 16th centuries, set in a 1994 window by Alfred Fisher. The chapel is a rare example of a 14th century private chapel. The fixed stone altar slab supported on three solid brackets and the encaustic tiles on the floor are all of the original date.

The embroidered pillow below was in the Gallery, remodelled in the Gothic style in the 1760's and redecorated in 1970. The gallery contains family portraits from the late 16th Century through to Geoffrey, the 18th Lord Saye & Sele who died in 1937.

The unusual compound title of Saye and Sele dates from the original creation of the Baronry in 1447. It is partly personal, from the connection with the family's French ancestors in Normandy, the Lords Say. It is also territorial through the ownership of the land at Seal (now on the outskirts of Sevenoaks) in Kent. (Not sure why the modern-day spelling is Sele rather than Seal ...)

I was fascinated by the Bury Lodge Room. The wallpaper is by Zuber of Alsace and dates from 1840. The furniture is largely from Bury Lodge, Hambledon, Hampshire, the home of the 21st Lord Saye and Sele's maternal grandparents. Just look at this embroidery on the bedcover!

Writing of needlework - this table cover, the work of Caroline Twisleton in 1849, traces the history of the Saye & Sele family in panels of needlepoint.

One of the side rooms had a display about Celia Fiennes (1662 - 1741). Celia rode side-saddle through every county in England in the late 1690's - enterprising journeys at a time of highwaymen and mud-tracks for roads. Her diaries about her excursions have become an important source of information for historians looking at life in England in this period. In the gift shop, I bought a book that contains her diaries.

You may be wondering if there is any connection between Celia Fiennes and the well-known actor Ralph Fiennes (The English Patient, Schindler's List, Harry Potter films and James Bond films). Why yes! Ralph, and his brother Joseph (also an actor), as well as the explorer Sir Ranulph Fiennes are directly descended from Frederick, 16th Lord Saye & Sele.

As usual, I was the last one to finish exploring the castle, and not seeing any of my party, I hastened to the gift shop. Not one of them in sight. Hmmm .... where could they be? I made my purchase and headed back to the castle. I found them rounding one corner, and quickly learned that I had missed a staircase to the roof. I snuck back in and climbed the stairs. Totally worth it!

To the right is the Ladies Garden installed by Lady Algernon Gordon-Lennox in the late 1890s. In 1895, the Gordon-Lennox family rented the Castle from John, 17th Lord Saye & Sele, and stayed for 17 years.

The castle has had its ups and downs over the years. William Thomas, 15th Lord Saye & Selem engaged in a life of frivolity and extravagance that resulted in a twelve-day sale, disposing of the bulk of the contents in the castle. The last items sold? The swans on the moat.

Within a stone's throw of the gatehouse lies the parish church of St. Mary Broughton. The church built by Sir John de Broughton is largely early 14th Century, although a 12th Century font in the church may be a survivor from an earlier building.

"Broughton ... the most beautiful of houses, medieval in a 16th century shell with Gothick additions, entered across a moat and through a gatehouse, almost a standard kit for an idyll. There's a formal garden, great plush borders along the old ramparts and cows and sheep grazing in the water meadows beyond, overlooking all this rambling honey-coloured house ... as magical inside as out, handsome rooms lined with linenfold paneling and a splendid drawing room overlooking the moat. My wonder at the place makes me foolish and I'm sure I gush .." Alan Bennett, Writing Home, 1996

*** I may be slow in commenting this week.

****I will be taking a break from posting on 5/29. Come back to Mosaic Monday on June 5.

Linking to Wanderlust https://www.ue30blogger.de/2022/04/blogparade-wanderlust-ue30blogger-friends.html

Mosaic Monday

Welcome to Mosaic Monday, a weekly meme where we get together to share our photo mosaics and collages.

Please include at least one photo mosaic/collage in your post.

The link will be open from 1 p.m. Sunday until 11 p.m. Tuesday (U.S. Mountain time).

Remember to add the link to your Mosaic Monday post and not the one to your blog.

Please link back to this post so that your readers will be able to visit and enjoy more wonderful mosaics; taking the MM blog button from my sidebar is an easy way to link back.

As host I will visit every participant and leave a comment so that you know I stopped by.

Please try and visit as many other blogs as you can, especially those that join in later, so that everyone's creativity can be appreciated fully.

Thank you for joining in today and sharing your mosaics with us.

Sunday, May 15, 2022

Mosaic Monday #177: Revelry with Raptors

Spousal Unit is generally our tour guide operator when we travel to the UK. My in-laws and I have the opportunity for input, but my dear husband conducts all the research, scouring TripAdvisor and other reliable sources for activities/sights we will enjoy. This trip, he found a rare experience that was an ideal fit with my interest in birds. Walks with Hawks allows for personal interaction with several species of raptors!

As someone who puts animal welfare high on my list of priorities, I was mildly concerned about the source of the birds and their care. Having spent 2.5 hours with Clare, the owner of the operation, I learned she hand raises each raptor and they become part of her family. The young raptors are hatched from eggs that are commercially produced - not from the wild.

Before she even started, she checked our "gross-out" tolerance. After all, raptors are carnivores, and she uses chicken pieces and whole dead chicks during the experience. No worries for us! (There are only one or two pictures in this series that someone might find unpleasant - I apologize if that's the case.)

I regret that I don't remember the name of the Great Horned Owl, the first bird we saw. Most of the raptors started on a perch, and Clare would put chicken on my glove, leading the bird to fly to me. Spousal Unit had practiced with the slo-mo feature on my phone, which is ideal for this type of videography. The only down side? The sound is odd! Below is a clip of the Great Horned Owl in flight.

She gave the chicks to the raptors at the end of their segment, partly as reward and partly because offering it to them at the beginning might result in no more flight that day (see explanation below).

I couldn't possibly remember everything that Clare taught us that day (I interacted with the raptors while Spousal Unit served as photographer and videographer); she is extremely knowledgeable about each species. I was impressed that she could also recite the weight of each bird not only for that day but for the day before. As I learned, this was not just some gimmick. Raptors will only fly if they are hungry, and the way to know they are hungry is by weight; when their food is sufficiently digested, their weight goes down and they will want to hunt. (And this is not to imply that she is starving them so they will "perform." She has enough birds that she can monitor the weight and know which ones to bring to a particular session.) Fascinating!

It prompted me to ask if a raptor (such as a Bald Eagle) flies for "fun". This has often occurred to me when I see one circling ever higher on a thermal air current. The answer is no. Most flying is for hunting. And by the way, Clare told us, this is the origin of the phrase "fed up". A raptor that is "fed up" will not fly or hunt.

Below is a video of Eboo flying. (I may have mis-spelled its name.) Eboo was distracted by the planes flying to and from the small airfield near the farm, and needed a little more coaxing.

"Oreo", a Barn Owl, was the third and final owl we would meet. Oreo is quite rare due to melanism, a development of dark-colored pigment that is the opposite of albinism. With Oreo, we also learned how small an owl's head is, camouflaged under all those feathers. Gently, we put a finger into the feathers at the back of the owl's head; our hand practically disappeared before we felt anything firm!

By now, you will also have noticed some common equipment with each of the raptors. Gloves - those talons are sharp and the birds have quite a grip! Jesses, strips of strong leather that allow for extra control of the raptor if needed (which never happened at our session). Reward tags - includes a serial number and contact information. Clare noted that is very uncommon for her birds to "fly off", particularly the owls. Unlike the other raptors, the owls bond with her, and won't stray. But as a precaution, she put a transmitter on each bird as it came out of its case.

Below are two videos of Oreo in flight.

The next raptor we met was "Ronnie," a Harris's Hawk. With Ronnie, we walked a short distance around the farm (hence "Walks with Hawks"). The hawk would fly from my glove to a tree. Tree to glove. Glove to fence post. And so on. These hawks feed mostly on medium-sized mammals such as hares, ground squirrels and other rodents. Thus, it was not surprising that Ronnie swept close to the ground in flight. Check out the video.

Throughout our time together, Clare shared many phrases that have come from falconry. "Eyes like a hawk": if we had the vision of a hawk, we could read a newspaper being held at the other end of a football field. Here is Ronnie looking intently at something!

In that picture, you can also clearly see the jesses. Several common terms relate to these leather straps: "end of my tether" , "wrapped around my little finger" and "under my thumb".

At the end of our time with Ronnie, Clare had us stand close together. And not move. And then Ronnie flew right past our ears! You could easily imagine how the raptor might use this skill to fly through a hedge for prey.

"Kibbles", an American Kestrel, was our next raptor. Can you see the bell on one of the jesses? Falconry bells are commonly used to locate the bird, let the falconer know if the bird is active and signal if the bird is near a predator. Another piece of equipment that is commonly associated with falconry is the hood. We did not see one that day, but Clare informed us that falconry hoods are the source of the term "hoodwinked". A bird was kept calm by using a small hood - being tricked into calming themselves. Hoodwinked means to be fooled into doing something!

Here is Kibbles in flight.

You may be wondering about the location for Walks with Hawks - Clare is not associated with the farm; she has permission to use it for her operation. She shared with us that her time with families often brings a silver lining: she has an opportunity to educate them, especially children, about the role of farms. Can you imagine that many people do not understand the source of beef, or tomatoes, (just to name two examples she mentioned)?

The final raptor of the day was "Hope", the Chilean Blue Eagle you saw at the beginning of the post. Is this a majestic bird, or what?

Clare explained that in the wild, birds will lose two feathers in a symmetrical manner, particularly on the wings, so that it does not affect flight. For some reason, Hope had gone through a complete molt, and therefore she could not fly. But it was OK; she was stunning just being stationary! Just look at the blue of the feathers on her back - doesn't even look real!

Suffice it to say that Spousal Unit hit it out of the park, arranging this spectacular experience. I am grateful beyond words!