Month: November 2020

Heron King

heron

You can see that I’ve struggled to draw on of my Dalesman nature diary illustrations in the same grungy style as my first Adobe Fresco drawing on my iPhone, but really that’s the point of it. This heron, which touched down on the greenhouse last January, was probably checking out our garden pond for the first frogs. It looks suitably regal and, for our frogs, dangerous, so I thought of the Aesop’s fable of the frogs who ask Zeus for a king but soon tire of log that he throws down for them and request a more impressive leader. They soon come regret their request.

Fresco for iPhone

man in hat

My first drawing using Adobe Fresco for iPhone, drawn with a Wacom Bamboo stylus.

Published
Categorized as Drawing

Common Puffball

puffball

Common Puffball, Lycoperdon perlatum, is edible when young, as in the one above, growing on grassland near trees on the south bank of Skelton Lake. The pyramidal warts fall away as the puffball changes colour from white to ochre brown, leaving a faint net-like pattern.

These two were growing within a few feet of each other with a third nearby.

Woodland Mushroom

woodland mushroom

The fibrous scales on this small mushroom resemble those of the Blushing Wood Mushroom, Agaricus silvaticus, a common species that some writers say is good to eat, but there are similar-looking species that aren’t, so I won’t be giving it a try.

Alder

alder cones

The alder is the nearest that we get to mangroves as it produces adventitious roots above ground which enable it to grow in very wet ground, even at the water’s edge. These female woody ‘cones’ are ripening and will attract seed-eating birds such as redpolls and siskins.