Sudbury Meadow

Bringing Wildlife Closer to Home

Picture Gallery

The pictures below give a flavour of Sudbury Meadow and our activities.
Of course the best way to enjoy the meadow is to visit it, especially on a sunny, summer day! 

(All pictures are copyright of Friends of Sudbury Meadow)

A new dead hedge created from the shrubbery cuttings. 04/02/23

Finishing coppicing and pollarding the shrubbery. 07/01/23

Winter sunshine on a snowy meadow. 15/12/22

Grace collecting bean seeds in the Butterfly garden. 01/10/22

Orchard cut and gather. 13/09/22

Glorious colour in the Bird Garden. 03/07/22

Queen's Platinum Jubilee picnic after our work party. Not the driest or warmest lunchtime! 04/06/22

Magnificent Viburnum plicatum mariesii in the Bird Garden. 09/05/22

Spring-clean in the Butterfly garden. 12/04/22

Bee boxes and wildlife tower in the Wildlife garden. 14/08/21

Late summer colour in the Bird garden. 14/08/21

Butterfly garden in full bloom. 18/07/21

Barbara ready for action after the first partial meadow cut. 03/07/21

Giant-sized cow parsley due to the flooding at the start of the year. 06/06/21

New rustic garden boundary under construction. Working 2m apart as Covid regulations required! 01/05/21

Spring tidy-up.   01/05/21

Who needs to go to the gym when you can coppice or pollard three quarters of the
 shrubbery?   A job well done.  01/02/20

The Saturday team, ready for a visit to the pub after a hard morning's work. 07/12/19

View across the Bird garden to the Wildlife garden. 30/09/19

Picking Blue Tit Plums (and trying not to eat too many!) 03/08/19

Marbled White at rest. The first record for Sudbury Meadow. 15/07/19

Gatekeeper butterfly. They love all the grasses where they lay their eggs and also the
Wild Marjoram in our Butterfly garden. 15/07/19

Cinnabar moth caterpillar on Ragwort. One good reason for not removing
the ragwort! 15/07/19

Ringlet butterfly. It was a great year for Ringlets at Sudbury Meadow. 30/06/19

Lots of Common Knapweed in full flower. A great plant for insects. 30/06/19

View across the Bird garden including the mini meadow. 30/06/19

Barbara and Pam hard at work. 18/06/19

Lots of flowers for insects in the Wildlife Garden. 15/06/19

Not to be outdone, poppies in the annual border!  15/06/19

The yellow spikes of Asphodeline lutea adding dramatic height to the perennial
border. 28/05/19

A glorious day in the blossoming orchard.  21/04/19

Male Pheasant showing off to anyone who passed! 10/04/19

The start of a new season in the Butterfly Garden. 02/03/19

Meadow mowing courtesy of a volunteer from Paxton Pits Nature Reserve. 22/10/18

The Bird garden looking very colourful despite the really dry and hot summer.
We did water it a bit, but tried to be economical. 11/09/18

Another first for Yuki (right), a picnic. Yuki was on an English language course, so we hope we
helped a bit. He was certainly good fun and already spoke very good English. 01/09/18

David (left) helping our Japanese volunteer, Yuki, with his first taste of UK hedge cutting. 01/09/18

Celebrating National Meadows Day with a picnic after the work party. 07/07/18

Not everyone needed the shade at our National Meadows Day picnic....... 07/07/18

....... but most people did. It was a very, very hot day!  07/07/18

Corn marigolds just starting to flower in the Butterfly garden. 23/06/18

A toad in the compost heap. Rapidly digging itself further in after the cover
came off! We replaced the cover straight away. 16/06/18

Restoring part of the footpath edging.  02/06/18

Gardening amongst the poppies. 02/06/18

A drone's eye-view! 17/04/18

Volunteers from U. S. Visiting Forces, Molesworth with our volunteer, Barrie (far left).
07/04/18

More spring flowers in the Wildlife Garden. 07/04/18

Lovely daffodils in the Wildlife Garden. 07/04/18

Light but persistent rain didn't quite dampen our spirits whilst clearing part
 of the footpath. 03/02/18

Very early hazel catkins looking lovely in winter sunshine. 30/01/18

More of the team enjoying well earned refreshments at The Barley Mow.  02/12/17

Del, Alison and Nadine enjoying The Barley Mow hospitality. 02/12/17

Alison and Barrie tidying up after hedge trimming. 02/12/17

Consolidating the composting meadow cuttings, spurred on by thoughts of the Christmas
drink at The Barley Mow! 02/12/17

The Wilkinsons, at the installation of a new seat, donated by them in memory of our
member Gerald Wilkinson, who went 'Off Galivanting' on 22/09/17. We will miss his
cheerful visits to our work parties.  29/10/17

Lots of autumn colour in the Wildlife Garden. 07/10/17

The orchard getting its annual grass cut, thanks to a wonderful team of volunteers from
Paxton Pits Nature Reserve and Ranger, Matt Hall. Time to start apple picking too. 30/08/17

Barrie and Barbara enjoying a break from gardening on a glorious day. 16/08/17

Black Knapweed (Centaurea nigra), a great plant for insects, grows well in
Lower Meadow. 12/07/17

Cow Parsley (Anthriscus sylvestris) in full flower. There were buttercups too. 10/05/17

Bird Garden looking lovely on a sunny May day. 10/05/17

The perennials bed getting a much needed clear-out thanks
to our wonderful volunteers. 06/05/17

The Bird Garden getting a tidy-up. 06/05/17

The orchard in full bloom. Hope the bees were busy! 16/04/17

Spring blossom in the Bird and Wildlife Gardens. 16/04/17

An enthusiastic hedge cutting team on a lovely March morning. 04/03/17

Left and right

The Friends of Sudbury Meadow Christmas Tree at The United Reform Church Christmas Tree Festival. We received the most votes! Well done and very many thanks to Di, Christine and Barbara who designed and put up the tree (and Lin who helped remove it). Thanks also to Mark who took these photos.  03/12/16

View from the south-east corner of the site, looking much bigger
 after the cut. 03/10/16

Ranger Matt Hall removing last year's cuttings and tidying up this
year's pile. 03/10/16

Buttercups in the Bird garden's mini-meadow. 14/05/16

The meadow awash with cow parsley.  14/05/16

Blossom time in the orchard. Sadly the variable weather prevented
successful pollination for many of the trees. 16/05/16

At last, grass at the front and a very well trimmed hedge! 16/01/16

The Wildlife Garden looking stunning after a year of loving
care by U3A and FoSM volunteers. 14/09/15

Yellow Corn Marigolds self-sown from 2014. What a lovely
 display and the insects love them. 09/07/15

Meadow Brown butterfly on wild marjoram. 02/07/15

A job well done!  The Waitrose team - Thanks everyone!
22/06/15

A light summer hedge cut courtesy of a team
from Waitrose, St Neots. 22/06/15

Grainne insect spotting in the Butterfly Garden. 06/06/15

Spring time in the meadow with Cow Parsley and
Buttercups. 20/05/15

Cowslips flowering in profusion in the lower meadow. 21/05/15

Newly planted Sorbus commixta. 14/02/15

Comma and Small Tortoiseshell butterflies on
wild marjoram.  09/07/14

All change!  Four Lombardy poplar trees failed a safety inspection last year.
 Work started on 24th February 2014 to remove them.  26/02/14

The Bird garden, with Sorbus berries and crab apples ripening for
 wildlife. 13/09/13

Small Tortoiseshell butterflies in the nettle patch.
Great to see more of them this year. (14/07/13)

Celebrating our second Green Flag Community Award
during a very hot work party in late July 2012!

Great Tit leaving a nest box, May 2012.
(Image courtesy of Warren Gunn.)

What a surprise!  A small honeycomb formed around a branch of a
purple leaved elder (Sambucus nigra 'Black Lace') in the Bird Garden.
Presumed to be a swarm of honeybees, but no one reported seeing it. 
Picture taken - 09/06/11

A Speckled Wood butterfly sheltering in the long grass on 16th April 2011

In the beginning - a view from the gate taken on 22nd June 2000. 
Note the expanding bramble patch, middle right of the picture. 
This eventually became one of our wildlife gardens.