Month: July 2021

Gatekeeper

gatekeeper

After yesterday’s sun, this morning was overcast and cool enough for this male gatekeeper to stay perched on a bramble leaf as we photographed it. Gatekeepers are named because the males, distinguished by the dark band of scent glands on their forewings, were often seen patrolling their territory at the entrance to a wood.

Since we first started visiting St Aidan’s RSPB reserve a couple of years ago the main track along the foot of the hill has matured from what you might have called open scrub to something a little closer to woodland edge habitat. The gatekeepers appreciate that but perhaps it doesn’t suit the kestrel that was often seen hovering over this stretch, or the stonechat, which we saw on almost every visit, perching on top of a post. Today the posts have disappeared amongst the long grasses and willow bushes.

The reserve proved to be a good place to try out the Zeiss Victory SF 8×32 binoculars that I’ve got on a 48-hour loan. I was able to focus on the butterfly from as little as about seven feet away and see far more detail than I could with the unaided eye.

common blue damselfly

These common blue damselflies were clasping each other in tandem amongst the grasses.

The 8x32s have a much wider field of view than my regular pocket-sized 8x20s, so I found could quickly focus on any bird: a common tern diving, a linnet perching at the edge of the reedbed and, the most spectacular, a bittern flying high down the valley in the direction of Fairburn Ings.

Buzzard and stonechat at St Aidan’s on a previous visit.

Back home, as I reluctantly prepared to pack away the 8x32s for the courier to collect tomorrow, I was able to use them one last time as a buzzard performed a lap of honour, circling over the meadow.

Zeiss Victory 8×32

Trying out some Zeiss Victory 8×32 binoculars and they’re impressive for looking at the sparrows, goldfinches and tits on the feeders but if it’s cool enough tomorrow I look forward to taking them out on location on an RSPB reserve.

It looks like being a clear night, so I’ll turn them on the night sky, with a waxing moon and the ‘Summer Triangle’ of the bright stars Deneb, Vega and Altair over the wood, so we’ll be looking towards the Milky Way. The the ratio of magnification to the size of the objective lenses, 8×32, gives them good light-gathering powers, better than the same binoculars in the more powerful 10×32 version.

They’re equally impressive for close-ups: at 6ft 4inches tall, I can’t quite focus on my feet, but if there was a dragonfly on the ground just three feet in front of me I could easily focus on that.

Crack Willow

crack willow sketchbook page

Newmillerdam, 10.30 a.m., 65℉, 17℃, a few high, hazy stratus: This backwater near the car park is a first call for people feeding the ducks. A family of four young coot chicks is being fed by an adult with delicacy and care, interspersed with aggression as the adult attacks one of the chicks, clasping its head in its beak several times as the chick paddles frantically to escape. Perhaps it’s a stray chick from another family – there’s another family foraging around the boughs of the crack willow, just yards away – but coots will attack their own young.

coot family
The chicks were smaller than the ones in my sketch, with dark red rather than yellow head-patches and darker downy plumage.

Another possibility is that the aggression was triggered because this particular chick didn’t have such bright colours on its head as its siblings. Could this be a sign that it wasn’t in the best of health and that therefore – in order to give the rest of the brood a better chance of survival – it wasn’t worth the effort of feeding? The adult was going for its head-patch, as if that was causing offence.

Enchanter’s Nightshade

Enchanter's nightshade

Enchanter’s nightshade grows at my feet at the edge of the path. Unlike most other members of the willowherb family it doesn’t release parachute-type seeds but instead covers its seedpods with Velcro-style hooks, so that they get carried along by any passing furry animal. No shortage of those here at Newmillerdam.

For the Anglo Saxons, enchanter’s nightshade was ælf-þone (aelfthone), a charm against elves.

books and folders
Books and folders at John’s.

Dor Beetle

dor beetle

On Wednesday evening, I found this dor beetle lying on its back on the tiles near the back door, kicking its legs in a futile attempt to turn itself upright again. I rescued it and released it on the patio. They’re attracted to light so it may have flown in and made a crash landing when it collided with a cupboard door.

Working in pairs, the adults bury dung for their larvae to feed on.

This looks very like the species Geotrupes stercorarius except for the antennae. According to George McGavin in the RSPB Wildlife of Britain:

the club-ended antennae have 11 segments but are not elbowed”

George McGavin, RSPB Wildlife of Britain, The Definitive Visual Guide

These were elbowed. The beetle was almost an inch long, perhaps 2 centimetres. It was flattened in cross-section, compared to, say, a similar-sized bumblebee.

These beetles are often infested with mites, hence one old name ‘The Lousy Watchman’. I didn’t see any mites on this individual but it had been infected with a fungus and some tiny sporangia were growing from its left jaw and its mouthparts. Picking up spores must be a occupational hazard for a beetle that specialises in digging.

Drawn in Adobe Fresco with an Apple Pencil on my iPad Pro, using the ‘Natural Inker’ pen and the ‘Color fill’ brush.

Digitally Drawn

Sketches Pro

As for once I hadn’t taken my sketchbook with me, I literally drew with a digit yesterday, using a finger on my iPhone screen in Tayasui Sketches Pro (left) as we sat with a mint and lime drink in the shaded courtyard of Horbury’s Flamingo Teapot Cafe but after all the large-scale pen and watercolour work that I’ve done for my Redbox Gallery show, I felt that it was about time I tried drawing with my Apple Pencil on my iPad Pro again.

The man in the hat and the sumac were drawn in Adobe Fresco, using its virtual ‘Blake’ pen for the drawing.

Paperlike

Would I find it easier if I used a matt screen protector, like Paperlike, on my iPad, to give it a more natural feel? Or a rubberised tip for the Apple Pencil, to give it a hint of resistance as it moves over the glass screen?

Adobe Fresco sketch

Drawing on the iPad is never going to be as familiar to me as pen on paper but I’m keen to have the best possible image so I’d have to avoid any matt screen protector because it adds a very slight amount of colour fringing to the image.

Every Flower Counts #2

I didn’t have a ball to throw over my shoulder to select my random square metre for last month’s survey but since then a fox has deposited this cricket practice ball in our back garden. I must return it to Rogue, the springer spaniel two doors along from us.
The flowerheads of ribwort plantain and catsear fell just outside my square metre.

It’s the last day to take part in Plantlife’s ‘Every Flower Counts’ follow-up survey, in my case to see how our front lawn has progressed since its last mowing at the end of ‘No-mow May’.

In my randomly chosen square metre there are just 9 white clover flowerheads, most of them already partially going to seed, so my nectar score is a little disappointing:

But it is a lot better than my ‘No Mow May’ score because a handful white clover flowerheads can produce more nectar than the 75 germander speedwell flowers that I counted last month so the lawn is producing 10 milligrams of nectar per square metre, an improvement on the 1.7 at the end of May, and the whole lawn can potentially support 13 bees, up from 2 in the last survey.

Yorkshire Rock

Dalesman article

The July Dalesman arrived in this morning’s post and my ‘Wild Yorkshire’ nature diary has a suitably rocky theme, as this year my British Geological Survey paperback, Yorkshire Rock, a journey through time, celebrates 25 years in print.

Redbox Show

Redbox Gallery
chimnies

Thanks to my scale model, we found that my Addingford and Joby cut-outs just fitted into the Redbox Gallery, although we did have to do a bit of jiggling about with the lengths of 10lb breaking strain fishing line that are holding up the storks cut-out and the speech bubbles.

Redbox Gallery show
St Peter's Church, Horbury

On Tuesday I drew St Peter’s Church spire from the dentist’s waiting room, which is just around the corner from the Redbox.

Addingford Logo

logo

For my ‘Addingford’ logo for my Redbox show, I resisted the temptation to echo the Addingford Steps location by drawing 3D lettering chiselled from stone, like a Charlton Heston epic from the 1950s but I did feel that I needed something blocky so I’ve gone for what’s called an Egyptian-style hand-drawn font – one with squared-off serifs – and I felt that it should be slightly condensed.

cut-out lettering

The vermillion (Winsor & Newton ink) is a nod towards the telephone box setting of the show and intended as a colour contrast with all the green in the artwork. It also picks out, more or less, the colour of Joby’s pullover.