Redshank, black-tailed godwit and a flock of several hundred golden plovers at RSPB Saltholme.
We took a break at the reserve on our return journey from Northumberland too, when we also saw dunlin and marsh harrier.
Shovellers at Saltholme
Author: Richard
Smooth Sow-thistle
Growing beside our compost bins, Smooth Sow-thistle, Sonchus oleraceus, is a common weed of disturbed ground.
The Collins flower guide mentions the ‘acute, spreading auricles’ at the base of the leaves as a diagnostic feature.
It steadily flopped as I drew it but since I finished it has perked up again, so I might get another chance to add a drawing of the shape of the leaf.
Portrait of a Sketcher, 1981
I’ve been scanning my Wakefield Market sketchbook for a fanzine-style publication and came across these fountain pen self-portraits.
I was trying to improve drawing figures and I set out several times a week in late autumn 1981 to draw on markets, in cafes and even on the bus there and back.
In some of the sketches of Barbara from that time she’s busy knitting but I’m not sure if this Aran sweater is one of hers or one my sister knitted for me.
Wakefield Market
I’m hoping that this acrylic on canvas, 5ft x 2ft painting of Wakefield Market might soon get a second showing as it was last exhibited in 1982.
I think this is my favourite corner of the painting. I can reveal that Barbara played the role of ‘old lady in striped coat’. I’d drawn a figure on location and took a Polaroid of Barbara in as near to the striped coat and dotted headscarf as I could find.
The painting is unfinished: that case should contain a random selection of 1970s/80s ladies’ shoes! I’d sketched a children’s tricycle on one of the stalls and was able to borrow a similar one from the Ebenezer Hall play group in Horbury to paint.
My ambition was to make it into a triptych, a wrap-around experience like the market itself, which was a bit of a maze in those days.
‘Cockney Mick’
‘Cockney Mick’ Lawton had his fruit and veg stall at the entrance to the covered meat market. He spotted me drawing and liked the drawing, so I did a him a photocopy of it. In return he got one of his assistants to fill a small paper sack with every kind of fruit from the stall. He was going to send her around with another bag for a selection of veg too, but I told him it would take me a week to finish the fruit.
Meet the Guys
At that time the first row of stalls nearest the old Cathedral School were all fruit and veg. I sat on the wall in front of the school and thought I’d be able to work unseen. No such luck:
“Penny for the Guy, Mister?”
I made a deal, I’d give them a very small amount if they’d sit for me to draw them.
I’m guessing that Kelly, Banger and Mizzy are now successful entrepeneurs.
Golden Hornet
While pruning the Golden Hornet crab apple I became aware that someone was watching me. Directly overhead a buzzard was hanging in the air, about 100 feet above me.
At the top of the stepladder in the crown of the tree, I had a wood pigeon’s eye-view of our newly-built raised beds.
The Weeping Birch
Stan Barstow Memorial Garden, Queen Street, Horbury, 2.30 pm, 65℉, 17℃: As soon as I sit on a bench beneath a weeping silver birch, aphids and plant bugs start trundling about on my knee and over my sketchbook page.
Rowan and Maple
Rowan and maple leaves.
Otter Spraints
Otter spraints neatly deposited on a mooring bollard by the canal at the Bingley Arms, Horbury Bridge. I’ve yet to see one of the otters but I was told that they’d been picked up on security cameras near the river.
Kestrels
A kestrel hovers over a rough marshy field by the canal at Calder Grove.
It swoops off low across the field and meets a second kestrel in a brief aerial skirmish.
The two rest for a while, perching on power-line cables.
Then there’s a second set-too and a chase away through a gap in the trees.
One bird, presumably the victor in this dispute, stops to perch further along the power line while the other disappears towards the British Oak viaduct.
Visitors
Grey Squirrel
Soon after I finish picking up the rowan twigs I’d been pruning, a squirrel appears, carrying two peanut shells. It leaves one near the top corner of the bed and selects a spot near a plant in near the centre to bury the other.
Refilling the hole and ‘making good’ – to use a builder’s expression is a thorough process.
It picks up the peanut it left earlier and buries it with equal care near the beech hedge.
Song Thrush
The song thrush is back again for another feed on the berries before they finally drop from the sumac.
These were taken on my iPhone.
Brown Rat
Back in the summer we saw a large brown rat scuttling across our patio in daylight and decided to take a break from feeding the birds. Three months later this didn’t seem to have made any difference as we’d still occasionally one passing through so we’ve started filling the feeders again.
When I’m doing that I inevitably spill a few sunflower hearts, assuming that the birds will soon spot them.
This afternoon though it was a medium-sized rat climbing one of the garden chairs to search around for spilt sunflower hearts on our patio table.
I’ll be more careful next time I fill the feeders but we will keep on feeding the birds. The local rat population is something that we will have to live with. All our neighbours report the same problem.