Hapee Burfday to Jo.
Scissorhands
Author: Richard
Staple Newk
We were lucky with the weather for our midweek break on the coast, although at windswept Staple Newk at RSPB Bempton Cliffs, I made sure that I clung tight to my sketchbook as I drew this gannet calling and spreading its wings at the top of the cliff, just yards below the viewing platform.
Lemurs, Llamas and Penguins
The ring-tailed lemurs at Sewerby Hall were eating the green leaves from bundles of freshly-cut bamboo. One perched, sitting upright, on a log and spread its arms to soak up the sun.
The llamas were also looking relaxed. This one, sitting munching with its companions in its paddock barely opened its eyes as I drew it.
The Humboldt penguins were more active, swimming around in their pool, twisting around to preen and scratch themselves.
After a few minutes they started making their way out of the pond, heading for a spot in the sun to dry off. Amongst them, Pickle (bottom left), still in her plain grey juvenile plumage. After initial enthusiasm, parents Sigsby and Twinny had started to neglect their incubation duties so the egg was transferred to an incubator and Pickle was hand-reared by head keeper John Pickering and his wife Tracey.
Link
New Humboldt Penguin chick arrives at Sewerby Hall and Gardens
Tomatoes
I promise this is the final instalment in my vegetable trilogy: vine-ripened tomatoes. And these were supermarket grown, although I’m hoping we’ll still have some ripening in the greenhouse into next month.
Red Peppers
Back to the veg rack for my subject today, red peppers. I did try growing them this year but in our unheated greenhouse they never ripened and we ate them green.
Sweet Potato
Looking rather like grey seals resting on a beach, two sweet potatoes from the veg rack.
Preening Canada Geese
The preening routine of a Canada goose involves Pilates-style stretching and twisting.
Deep in the Wood
This children’s book, first published in 1987 by Heinemann, was inspired by us moving down to Coxley Valley a few years earlier.
At this time of year, the wood and meadow have taken on the early autumnal look that sets the mood for the story, such as it is: it’s a walk through the wood looking at the way birds and animals use sight, smell, hearing, touch and taste.
I included butterflies tasting through their feet and bees seeing ultra-violet but my spread of a pipistrelle bat using echo location turned out looking a bit too technical to sit comfortably with the other spreads.
Corinthian Capitals
John Carr’s Corinthian columns give Horbury’s parish church of St Peter & St Leonard’s an air of grandeur, in contrast to the old parish church, demolished in 1791, which, in his talk today, Keith Lister suggests may originally have been a timber building, like some surviving thousand-year old Scandinavian churches.
Keith’s talk as part of Horbury Heritage Weekend is ‘Horbury in the time of Baring-Gould, 1864-7’.
Hoof Fungus
This hoof fungus, Fomes fomentarius, appears to have powdered the roots of the beech it is growing on with a film of rusty spores.
It’s also known as the tinder bracket because it has been used as in fire-starting since prehistoric times.