Richard Bell's nature sketchbook since 1998
3.30 p.m., overcast: A few days ago the tadpoles were all in one frothy mass in the corner of the pond. They’re now exploring amongst the pebbles and pondweed but still concentrated in the corner.
Two smooth newts come up for air in the few minutes that I’m writing.
Langsett: There’s an alarmed mewing call of a buzzard as we walk up onto the moor. Over the conifers a pair are circling, seeing off a third which circles higher then disappears in the direction of Holme Moss. The resident pair do a lap of honour, spiralling high up over the plantation of Crookland Wood, while below a heron flies sedately over the treetops towards the reservoir.
A green tiger beetle trundles along the edge of the path over the moor, iridescent in the morning sunlight.
North America, Hingcliff Common, 11.30 a.m., breeze from the west, high cirrus over the moor, enormous bank of cumulus (a weather front) looms along the horizon to the northwest.
As I draw the crottle lichen a queen wasp flies to the corner of the gritstone block and sits in the sun. She then flies to my knee and cosies down in a fold of material. I guide her on to my sketchbook then persuade her to sit on the ruined wall beside me to sketch her.
Twenty or thirty gnats dance over a small mossy hollow between the gritstone blocks.
Red grouse and curlew call occasionally; willow warblers have now arrived and are singing along the edge of the cleared slopes at Mauk Royd on the south side of the reservoir.
A dabchick dives alongside a pair of Canada geese at the edge of the inlet where Thickwoods Brook enters the reservoir.
4.55 p.m., 45ºF, 7ºC: The rain has helped the cowslips that I planted in the meadow area to settle in. No umbrellas, pop-up tents or folding chairs today; I simply crouch down amongst the dripping grasses and get on with my drawing. The rain spots will be part of the drawing.
Adding pot-grown wild flowers to the meadow is working well. Whenever I have twenty minutes to spare, I can head down the garden and find something fresh to draw.
The Sunday evening ITV series The Durrells prompted me to take another look at a comic strip of My Family and Other Animals that I drew in my school days. I was so lucky to have Gerald Durrell’s account of a naturalist’s childhood in Corfu as the set book for my O-level English Literature exam.
11.50 a.m, 60ºF, 15ºC: It reminds me of being in Austria or Switzerland, sitting here with a coffee in the beer garden of the Castle Inn and drawing craggy summits. An energetic group of school children climbs the zig-zag path to Peveril Castle.
1.15 p.m., 52ºF, 11ºC: We’re back at the Rose Cottage Tearooms for lunch, as we were a week ago on our book delivery trip. Then I sketched the upper branches of an ash which seems to have a weeping habit; today I drew its trunk.
If it wasn’t signed, you’d miss the entrance to Cavedale in Castleton as, going up between the houses, it looks more like the entrance to someone’s back yard. An information panel explains that you’re entering via a narrow gap in rocks that are part of a fossil reef.
The dale soon opens out into a canyon. The keep of Peveril Castle is perched on top of the cliff on your right. Today the stony path, which gets steeper as the dale narrows ahead, seems more like a water feature after all the rain they’ve had in the Peak District recently.
We climb the path which steadily levels out then we follow a green lane across the plateau to Mam Tor. Passing the Blue John mine, we take the old road, closed due to landslips in 1979, down into the Hope Valley.
3 p.m., 58ºF, 14ºC: Small scabious, Scabiosa columbaria, is, as its names suggests, smaller than the field scabious, which is the species that we occasionally find growing on some of our local hedge banks. Field scabious has pinnate leaves while the the lance-shaped leaves of small scabious are entire, with fine teeth along the edge.
We planted it yesterday in the sunny border by the back lawn.
I try to get down to wild flower level by sitting at the edge of the lawn on a picnic blanket in as near as I can get to the lotus position, the way traditional tailors used to sit (and probably still do). I’m determined to finish my drawing down at this level but after 10 or 15 minutes it feels as if my hip joints were getting pulled apart so I sit with my legs folded sideways as I add the colour.
Greenfinch, song thrush and blackbird are singing, with a pheasant bursting into a grockle in the background. Then a burglar alarm joins in.
At the old mill race, Horbury Bridge, we’re looking down at the celandine, which is now in full flower, when we spot a wren gathering material from the steep shady bank on our right and taking it over to a crevice in the stonework on the sunny bank of the stream. To me this nest site looks perilously close to the flood level of the stream but the male builds several nests and it’s up to the female to decide which one will be suitable.
South Ossett, 10.20 a.m.: The morning sun is just getting into this sheltered corner and the flowers of the dandelion are steadily opening; ants are scurry across the paving.
The dandelion head on the lower right has turned to seed but dozens of them are lying on the wet paving slab, parachutes (pappus) unopened. It looks as if some bird has been pecking at it, perhaps one of the sparrows that I can hear calling from the rooftops.
We’re back at Blacker Hall Farm shop for lunch with a view from the restaurant in the barn of the Barnsley to Wakefield Kirkgate railway.
When we called in at the Rickaro Bookshop in Horbury this morning I couldn’t help thinking that Tilly, the bookshop border collie was feeling the call of the wild.
3.05 p.m.: A dunnock bursts into hurried song from the top of the freshly green hedge, then flies off on its rounds.
House sparrows are engaged in some dispute down in the hedge, repeatedly cheep, cheep, cheeping at each other.
The breeze whips around as a large grey cloud arrives from the west. Hanging from my bag in the sun, my key-fob thermometer shows a pleasant 70ºF, 22ºC; as the sun goes behind the cloud the temperature drops 20 degrees Fahrenheit to 50ºF, 10ºC.
A large bumble bee prospects under a pile of mossy/grassy debris by the compost bin. I’ve been considering providing an insect hotel.
Common knapweed, ribwort plantain and cow parsley are sprouting in our meadow area; less welcome are the creeping buttercup and particularly the chicory which, attractive as its sky blue flowers are, could easily take over, spreading by its rootstock in our deep, rich soil.
Gold-tipped feathery moss spreads over the bare patches of soil. My aim is to weed out the chicory and docks and this year to plant pot-grown wild flowers to add some interest and wildlife value . . . and to give me more subjects to draw.