Category: Birds

First Frogs

Emley Moor transmitter seen from across the Calder valley from Horbury, 11 a.m.
Emley Moor transmitter seen from across the Calder valley in Horbury, five miles to the northwest, 11 a.m.

2.30 p.m., overcast, merest hint of drizzle, 51ºF, 11ºC: Frog activity has started again in the pond. I counted seven but I guess there are ten in all, hidden in corners.

greenfinchIn the branches of the crab apple a greenfinch gives its nasal intake of breath through clenched teeth call – ‘Jeeeez!’

female blackbirdBlue tits continue to take an interest in the nest-box. Two female blackbirds fight it out by the shed. A male hops in between the two of them, as if to say ‘now cool it down.’

We two frogs together clinging

frogsThere are two frogs at my feet, one clinging to the other at the edge of the pond. I’m relieved to see the elegantly wafting tail of a male smooth newt in the depths below. I did wonder whether the female blackbird that developed the knack of catching them last year had eliminated them altogether.

Newt catching last year.
Newt catching last year.

I cleared overhanging plants and a lot of the pondweed a month ago so if the same female returns this year, she won’t be able to perch on so much emergent vegetation. I’ve left a big clump of pondweed in the deepest section so there’s plenty of room for the newts to hide.

Peony Buds

peony buds4.25 p.m., 40ºF, 5ºC: I find peonies more interesting to draw when the buds are opening up than when they open up into frothy flower-heads, which in our garden often get battered down by summer rain.

There was a dispute over the patio nest box this afternoon: two blue tits looked on anxiously from the clothes line as a female sparrow perched on the front of the box taking a good look in the nest-hole. blue titsparrowSparrows and blue tits took an interest in the box last year but it was finally occupied by red-tailed bumblebees. These birds had better stake their claim soon.

Farmyard Goose

farmyard gooseAt the car park at Cannon Hall a gaggle of about a dozen farmyard geese, mainly white, graze on the grass verge until a couple of walkers arrive with a bag of breadcrumbs.

The domestic goose is descended from the greylag but stands more upright than its wild relative because it has been selectively bred to be three times as heavy and to accumulate fat around its rear end. One of the geese had a dewlap and a similar flap hanging between its legs. This is a feature of the Toulouse, an old French breed.

In the American Pilgrim goose, males are always white and females grey.

daffodils‘Denied the opportunity to forage [geese] are uneconomic,’ writes John Woodward in The Field Guide, ‘for they have large appetites . . . the income derived from geese rarely justifies the use of valuable pasture.’

A toddler with a large bag of breadcrumbs is next in line to feed them.

Jumbo Grip Pencil

Oak at the corner of the car park, Cannon Hall (pen and watercolour).
Oak at the corner of the car park, Cannon Hall (pen and watercolour).

My drawing is a composite as these geese never keep still. I started with the head and worked down. When the birds set off in a different direction I kept adding to the sketch, transposing the shapes as if I was mirror-writing. Sometimes I’d be drawing one of the white geese, sometimes the one with the dewlap but the greyish-brown geese did have the white rear end, as I’ve drawn it here.

I drew the goose with a Faber-Castell Jumbo Grip pencil (below). With its triangular cross section and its rubberised ‘SoftGRIP’ stipples, this is one pencil that you’re not going drop even if you’re working in gloves. The matching pencil sharpener is easier to use on location than a craft knife. There’s a pencil-thin slot in my art bag that it fits neatly into so it’s not going to lose it’s point by getting jammed in with my pens and watercolours.

jumbo grip pencil

I’ve used various clutch pencils, otherwise known as propelling pencils, but they don’t have the bite of  a real pencil. The Jumbo Grip is rated B for hardness and is described as ‘ideal for learning to write’. But I like it for drawing too.

Link: Jumbo Grip Pencil

The Bittern Hide

Reedbeds seen from the Bittern Hide
Reedbeds seen from the Bittern Hide, 11.40 a.m., 40ºF, 6ºC. The Reedbed hide is just visible in the background.

swanRSPB Old Moor, 10.40 a.m., 39ºF, 4ºC, Reedbed Hide: We passed through a snow shower on the way here but as we walk to the Reedbed Hide there are only a few sleety spots in the wind.

Two mute swans are upending by the reeds as they make their way to their nest site, a mound of reeds.

grebetufted duckA great crested grebe motors over towards the swans, calling as he nears them (judging by the large cheek frills, this is the male). It’s a surprisingly loud call for what I think of as one of the quietest of wildfowl. My bird book describes the grebe’s spring calls as ‘a series of guttural far-reaching “rah-rah-rah” notes’. But, instead of skirmishing with the swans, as we thought he might do, he dives near them. Perhaps when he saw how large they are in close up he decided not to escalate the situation.

Mid-lagoon, two male and one female tufted ducks are diving.

Tête-a-Tête

daffodils3.15 p.m., 43ºF, 5ºc: As I draw these small tête-a-tête daffodils a dunnock hops about unconcernedly beneath the bird feeders just ten feet from me.

blue titI’m pleased to see that the blue tit with the drooping wing can now fly. It’s spending less time on the ground and more time on the feeders.

catdunnockIt’s as well that it can fly. The large fluffy black and white cat that lords it over all the other cats on our street is on our front lawn, very interested in something but I can’t see what but at least there are no feathers lying around it.

The Raven in the Bailey

ravenKnaresborough Castle, North Yorkshire: ‘Why would they keep ravens at a castle?’ I ask Isabella, Her Majesty’s Keeper of the Ravens, Duchy of Lancaster, ‘because they did from back in medieval times?’

She explains that there is no documentary evidence to suggest that anyone was paid specifically for the role at the Tower of London in medieval times; it appears to be a story told by the Victorians to visitors to the Tower but perhaps they had some inkling of a genuine tradition.

There are plenty of legends; ravens were sacred to Brân the Blessed of Celtic legend whose head was said to have been buried on Tower Hill, long before William the Conquerer built his bastion there. There’s a nice story that the Astronomer Royal, John Flamsteed, begged Charles II to employ someone to control the ravens at the Tower that were leaving their droppings on his telescope.

Door in the keep, Knaresborough Castle.
Door in the keep, Knaresborough Castle.

Perhaps ravens were valued for the work they did in scavenging around castles.

A Puddle in the Park

black-headed gullCorner of the duck ponf2.30 p.m., 13ºC, 55ºF, blustery winds and continuous showers from the west: Forty or fifty black-headed gulls flock down when children scatter breadcrumbs by the semi-permanent puddle alongside the duck pond at Thornes Park. I spot only one gull with the full chocolate brown mask of its summer plumage; some have just a dark dot behind the eye, others are at a halfway stage.

I draw a gull in flight which has a black band at the end of its tail but when I look up again every gull has a pure white tail. I’m start to think that I must have been mistaken but I must have seen a juvenile which – so my field guide tells me – does have a black band at the end of its tail. The colour of the feet and of the bill also vary between adults and juveniles.

Canada geese
Canada geese

mallard drakeIt’s such a dull rainy afternoon and I’m sheltering in the car putting the wipers on a occasionally so I’m not seeing the birds in glowing colour. I have to admit that the green of the drake mallard’s head is really informed guesswork. In this light, to me it just looks dark.

moorhen

I wind down the window to get a better view of the moorhens which are poddling around the muddy margins of the puddle, picking up scraps.

A Hole in the Hedge

habitat pile

‘the twisted gorse on the cliff edge, twigs, like snakes, lying on the path, the bare rock, worn and showing though the path, heath hits, gorse burnt and blackened, the high overhanging hedges by the steep roads, which pinch the setting sun, mantling clouds, and the thunder, the deep green valleys and the rounded hills – and the whole structure simple and complex.’

Graham Sutherland,
Notes by the Artist, Tate Gallery, March 1953

On a walk alongside the hedge banks near the Pembrokeshire coast, Graham Sutherland came across a gap in the hedge that particularly appealed to him.

‘I may have noticed a certain juxtaposition of forms at the side of a road, but on passing the same place next time, I might look for them in vain. It was only at the original moment of seeing that they had significance for me.’

‘If at first I attempted to make pictures here on the spot,’ he recalled, ‘I soon gave this up . . . I found that I could express what I felt only by paraphrasing what I saw.’

robin in the holly3.30 p.m., 7ºC, 45ºF; For my hole in the hedge, on a showery afternoon, I go to the trouble of setting up my pop-up tent at the end of the garden. A robin hops into the hedge seven feet away from my and eyes me suspiciously. Perhaps because I’m so used to watching birds through the double-glazing of the patio doors, its colour seems more vivid at close range.

pheasantAlso eyeing me suspiciously is the cock pheasant who strolls through the meadow, pauses at the hole in the hedge and decides that he’ll give me a wide berth.

Link: Paintings and Drawings by Graham Sutherland, Tate Gallery. In his statement, I wonder what Sutherland meant by ‘heath hits’. Perhaps a typo. In the context, I assumed that ‘steep rods’ should have read ‘steep roads’.

Birdbath

pheasantsrobin3.45 p.m.: Three female pheasants walk up the wood-chip path to peck at spilt sunflower hearts beneath the bird feeders.

blackbird bathingA robin’s bathing routine is interrupted by a blackbird, a more enthusiastic bather.

Two male and one female blackbird patrol the lawn. The female comes lower in the pecking order and is seen off by one of the males when she darts forward to pick up a morsel.

female blackbird female blackbird

January Sketchbook

A second gallery of pages which didn’t make it into my daily posts, taken from my Dove Grey A5 landscape Pink Pig sketchbook.

  • New year's day: a morning walk at Nostel Priory.