Boyton Banter No 5

Welcome to the fifth edition of your friendly, local newsletter. What a lovely time of year it is with the gardens bursting in to life and the grass in need of a regular haircut. Hopefully youll have had chance to see the bluebells in the Woods We are privileged to have such a beautiful habitat on our own doorstep. Do take the time to visit them, but tread with care! This theme sees the second of our Wild Boyton articles for you to enjoy. Ed.

Hopefully, inspired by the first article in this series, a few of you will have ventured out and enjoyed the natural wonders that we are fortunate to have on our doorsteps. Summer is now coming so there should be plenty of opportunities and fewer excuses. What is there to see at this time of year? It might still be possible to catch the melodic song of the Wood Lark in Rendlesham Forest but a walk there at dusk should certainly allow you to hear the insect-like churring of the Nightjar. It is a very distinctive harsh reeling song, supposedly audible up to 1 km away. The male also makes a loud clapping noise by slapping its wings over its back. It has bright white flashes on the wings and it is said that they will respond to a white cloth being waved in their territory but it has never worked for us - we think it is someone's idea to make you look stupid!

Not surprisingly the Nightjar has a lot of folklore attached to it. It used to be known as the goat-sucker, probably because it often used to feed in fields with livestock. The name is still found in the Latin for the genus to which it belongs: Caprimulgus. Goat-owners shouldn't worry, as it's preferred diet is insects. The old Suffolk name is much more prosaic: the night-hawk.

The first dragonflies will also be starting to appear. Boyton Marshes is home to a population of Hairy Dragonflies, a locally scarce species that is restricted to grazing marshes. It flies from early May to late June and is recognisable by its paired pear-shaped spots (blue in the male, yellow in the female) along a dark abdomen. Butterflies have also started to appear and it looks to have been a good year for Orange-tips, a white butterfly with, surprisingly, orange-tipped wings.

Boyton Wood is always worth a visit but the bluebells looked fantastic this year. Try going in the evening when the carpet of blue seems to shimmer and float over the ground.

Most of the summer birds have now arrived; we have Blackcaps and Chiffchaffs singing in the garden and a pair of nesting House Sparrows, a species that seems to be holding its own locally despite a huge decline in the national breeding population. Some of the most obvious birds at this time of year are the large gulls that regularly pass overhead. These are largely Herring and Lesser Black-backed Gulls going to and from the breeding colony on Orfordness. Remarkably the first breeding records in Suffolk for both species only took place as recently as the late 1950s. In the late 1990s there was something approaching a combined total of 25,000 pairs of the two species on Orfordness. Numbers seemed to have dropped more recently but it is still Britain's largest lowland gull colony.

Article kindly provided by Gary Lowe & Brenda Williamson, "Chesterfield Lodge", Boyton.

A proposal has been submitted to the East of England Development Agency for a grant of nearly £100,000 to enable approximately 35 households and 14 small businesses in Boyton, Hollesley, Alderton and Shottisham to have broadband at an affordable price. Broadband allows much larger amounts of data to be transmitted more quickly to PCs than conventional narrowband internet access. It will mark the end of the world wide wait as web pages load in seconds and will encourage economic growth by opening up new business and leisure opportunities to people in areas where broadband has been previously unavailable. And with a two-way flow of information that is always connected it makes for far greater capacity for online shopping, online gaming, video on demand and video conferencing as well as individually tailored training packages and leisure activities. The possibilities are endless. There is already a trial underway at the Shottisham exchange for 16 users. Fingers crossed. Fred Stentiford

Elections	£80 per day
Wedding Receptions	£40 per day
Marquee charge	£20 per day
Surgery	£25 per year
Party/Disco	£25 per evening
Childrens parties (before 19:00)	£15 per day
Coffee morning/afternoon/evening	£15 per day
Parking	£10 per day
Meeting (up to 3 hours)	£10 each
Hire of chairs	50p each per day
Hire of tables	£1 each per day
Hire of crockery, glassware, cutlery	10p per day per item.

Parish Information & Telephone Numbers (see also www.boyton.com )
Vicar: Revd. Geoffrey Clement (411748) Assistant Priest: Revd. Judith Andrews (411642)