Month: August 2021

Trail Cam Fox

Testing my new Browning Strike Force Pro XD trail cam yesterday in the back garden: at night in infrared mode on red fox and in daylight on grey squirrel, juvenile blackbird and dunnocks.

We think there may be two foxes; the first, with a bushy tail appears at 10.13 p.m., then ten minutes later there’s a similar-looking fox crossing the screen and finally, at 10.26, a fox with an apparently thinner tail with a lighter tip to it appears to notice the infrared light and it heads off.

The following night we recorded no fox activity, so I hope that we haven’t put them off with the infrared.

Parasol

mushroom
mushroom

These parasol mushrooms were growing in a small troop in a corner of our friends, Matthew and Tonia’s, back garden in Ossett, who’ve recently cut back shrubs to rejuvenate a shady bed by an old stone wall.

I remember that back, in the 1980s, Matthew attempted to remove the large stump of what I think had been a diseased elm from this corner, but in the end he had to bury it and leave it where it was, so these could be fungi associated with rotting wood.

To me it looks like one of the agarics, some of which are good to eat, others deadly poisonous. I should have taken a closer look at the gills.

2021: A Space Oddity

space comic strip

I’ve gone Cinerama format for my latest birthday card which continues the Lost in Space theme of the previous card.

space cartoons

How would you serve afternoon tea in zero G?

happy birthday banner

Wood Pigeon Selfies

trail cam photo

Time to test my new trail cam by positioning it below the bird feeders and sprinkling a few crumbs and mealworms on the lawn.

wood pigeon photos
dunnock

The wood pigeon took 36 selfies and even photobombed the dunnock’s brief appearance.

Also captured on camera, a blackbird, house sparrow and what we think was a song thrush.

Next test is on the video setting through the night . . .

blackbird

Horbury High Street

High Street

Much as we like our homemade bread it doesn’t keep long at this time of year so while the wood pigeon tucked into that (see the greatest hits from of the 103 selfies it took of itself on my new trail cam in my next post), we enjoyed the roast Mediterranean veg sandwich at the Cafe Capri.

The storks in their natural habitat

While we’re in Horbury, we check out my Addingford display in the Redbox Gallery in the old telephone box on Queen Street. I’m pleased that the foamboard artwork isn’t buckling too much under the summer sun and that I can see the Addingford Steps artwork and map so well on the back wall, then I realise that the reason that I can see them is because the two stork cut-outs, suspended on fishing line, have fallen down behind Joby’s riverbank.

I’ll reinstate them, but I’ll draw the birds again at half the size, so they don’t blot out the display at they did previously.

A Corner of the Meadow

sketchbook page

3.50 p.m., 91℉, 34℃ in direct sun, which is filtered through a veil of cloud with lower cumulus coming in from the south-east: A small hoverfly is fascinated by the lime green top of my pen and explores it as I draw.

blackbird

A blackbird is softly scolding and a female sparrow eyes me warily from the hedge.

my little meadow area
My small meadow area, next to the revamped compost bins, has been rather neglected this summer but it’s getting nearer to what I want. On this small scale I’m now aiming to put in plenty of plants for pollinators and manage those as the seasons go by, rather than attempt to create a traditional hay meadow.

Most unusual sighting is two Typhoons flying over, turning about on manoeuvre.

Self-build Starship

starship cartoon

It’s still rather expensive to take a trip into space, so perhaps self-build is the way to go . . .

Published
Categorized as cartoon

Knapweed

knapweed
Blue tit

2.30 p.m., 71℉, 22℃, 100% low grey cloud, slight breeze: I’m taking a break drawing the tumbling knapweed overhanging the pond. Two or three bumblebees work the flowers joined by a green-veined white butterfly.

This morning I had a summer pruning session on the Golden Hornet crab apple, which hasn’t been trimmed for almost two years. As soon as I’d finished, three or four blue tits appeared, foraging amongst the newly exposed clusters of twigs, left where I’ve trimmed off the long, slimmer newer growth.

‘Summer prune for fruit,’ said Monty Don on a recent Gardeners’ Word, ‘winter prune for growth.’

sparrowhawk

Following on from the blue tits, a sparrowhawk swoops through the crab apple, now able to fly right through the opened up centre of my goblet-shaped tree. It perches for a few seconds, then it’s off across the next garden. It’s small and brown, so we think that it’s an immature female.

Meadow Brown

meadow brown

A slightly battered meadow brown feeds on creeping thistle flowers at the edge of the meadow in The Pinewoods between Harlow Carr and the Valley Gardens, Harrogate. They’ve been mowing the meadow this morning, leaving the hay in rows to dry in the sun.

Valley Gardens

Management in The Pinewoods and at the top end of Valley Gardens aims to increase the biodiversity of woodland, meadow and parkland but as you get nearer the town there’s a Victorian formality to the carefully tended carpet bedding.

coleus
Coleus

The displays of scarlet geraniums and variegated coleus aren’t going to win any prizes for subtlety, but, along with the restored pavilions, park shelters and the Old Magnesia Well Pump Room, they’re a nostalgic delight.

coffee and scone at the Palm Court Cafe

Not surprisingly, as we’re into the summer holidays, there’s a one-hour queue at Betty’s Tearooms (both in town and up at RHS Harlow Carr) so, following a tip-off from our friends Roger and Sue, teashop connoisseurs, we headed to the Palm Court Cafe, above Farrah’s Olde Sweet Shop, for a latte and apricot-and-almond scone, and I drew the White Hart Hotel across the road.

White Hart Hotel, Harrogate

Goose Feather

Out of the goose feather quills that I’ve cut, my favourite is the thinnest and most flexible, so it’s quite suited to the curvy shapes of ducks, willow branches and alder leaves, drawn this from a fishing platform at Newmillerdam.

duck

But it isn’t practical for field work because the ink goes on so thickly that I can’t close the sketchbook. Over three hours later I’ve put it on the scanner and blots of ink have stuck to the glass.

alder

Even carrying back my open sketchbook I managed to leave my thumbprint on the wet ink of the drawing. It’s part of what makes drawing with a quill more spontaneous than drawing with my usual fountain pen, but for field sketches, that’s what I’ll be going back to.