Category: Birds

Scabious

scabious04163 p.m., 58ºF, 14ºC: Small scabious, Scabiosa columbaria, is, as its names suggests, smaller than the field scabious, which is the species that we occasionally find growing on some of our local hedge banks. Field scabious has pinnate leaves while the the lance-shaped leaves of small scabious are entire, with fine teeth along the edge.

We planted it yesterday in the sunny border by the back lawn.

I try to get down to wild flower level by sitting at the edge of the lawn on a picnic blanket in as near as I can get to the lotus position, the way traditional tailors used to sit (and probably still do). I’m determined to finish my drawing down at this level but after 10 or 15 minutes it feels as if my hip joints were getting pulled apart so I sit with my legs folded sideways as I add the colour.

wrenGreenfinch, song thrush and blackbird are singing, with a pheasant bursting into a grockle in the background. Then a burglar alarm joins in.

At the old mill race, Horbury Bridge, we’re looking down at the celandine, which is now in full flower, when we spot a wren gathering material from the steep shady bank on our right and taking it over to a crevice in the stonework on the sunny bank of the stream. To me this nest site looks perilously close to the flood level of the stream but the male builds several nests and it’s up to the female to decide which one will be suitable.

From the Riverside to Rose Cottage

ash
Ash, Rose Cottage tearooms.

siskinOur favourite book delivery: after dropping off a consignment of my walks booklets at the distributors in Orgreave we make our way across Sheffield and, via Ringinglow, up onto the moors. At the Riverside Café near Hathersage there are plenty of siskins on the bird feeders this morning.

There must have been more rain here in the Peak District than we’ve had at home because we’ve never known the paths from Hope across the slopes of Lose Hill to be so slickly muddy but at least we are able to thoroughly clean our walking boots in the puddles on the farm track into Castleton.

swallowcatOur first swallow flies out of a stable at Spring House Farm and out across the pasture.

Jackdaws sit in the top of the weeping ash in the back garden at Rose Cottage Tearooms, our regular lunch stop, but the garden isn’t quite as bird friendly as the Riverside: a tabby cat patrols the patio.

Dipper

dipper2.15 p.m.: A dipper in the river, Peaksole Water, at Hope, seems to take some effort to push below the surface. It keeps returning to a mid-stream rock, then heading out in different directions beneath the surface.

Pigeons on the Roof

town pigeonstown pigeonpigeons2 p.m.: The courtship technique of the male town pigeon on the ridge tiles of Lace & Co, Cluntergate, Horbury, is polite but persistent, with a lot of puffed up bowing and cooing, like the cross-gaitered Malvolio in Twelfth Night.

Dippers

dipperdipper10.30 a.m., sunny, cool breeze, 50% small cumulus: Two grey wagtails perch on the rocks above the weir on the River Porter or Little Don at the top end of Langsett Reservoir. A dipper flies downstream and perches on the top edge of the weir, holding a butterfly in its beak – it looks like a meadow brown, orangey brown with a small dot in the centre of the underwing.

dipperA second dipper appears, this one with a wiry stem, probably heather, in its beak. One of them flies to the river bank, where I guess that they’re nesting.

warblersBy the rocky path leading up to the moor, two warblers are flitting about. On stops to sing: a willow warbler? The song doesn’t tail off in the way that I expect it to.

Old gate way at the ruined farm North America.
Old gate way at the ruined farm North America.

Up on the moor there’s a lot of activity amongst the red grouse. A meadow pipit climbs then performs it gently parachuting display flight.

A grey heron flies up from a quiet stretch of the shore of the reservoir. As far as I remember, this is the first time we’ve spotted a heron at Langsett.

heron

First Chiff-chaff

Coxley Beck2.40 p.m.: I keep hearing a chiff-chaff in the background but always slightly drowned out by the sound of other birds or the sound of the beck, which is rushing along today brownish with sediment after yesterday’s rain. It’s only when a warbler hops along the branches of a willow that has fallen across the stream that I really believe that I’ve heard it. I get a better chance to hear the song when a chiff-chaff starts singing from the top of the willow at the other side of the stream.

chiff-chaffchiff-chaffBritish Summertime started at the weekend so it’s appropriate that warblers are now touching down after their return from Africa.

41ºF, 5ºc, pressure 998 mb, 29.4 in, sunshine and fairly heavy showers

Thornhill Hall Moat

thornhill lake2 p.m., cloudy with spots of rain: Two kestrels are perching in the treetops, including in a tall lime, in Thornhill Park on the slope above the moat of the old hall, destroyed during a Civil War seige One of the kestrels sees off a wood pigeon but going down onto the ground it’s the kestrel that gets pestered, by a pair of magpies.

kestrel soarsIn the hedgerows ground-ivy, red dead-nettle, chickweed, dandelion, dogs mercury and lesser celandine are in flower, magpiealthough on this cool afternoon the celandine flowers are closed.

Peregrine on the Spire

Wakefield Cathedral spire is 247 feet high. Whenever I try to picture a thousand feet, I think of four Wakefield Cathedral towers.
Wakefield Cathedral spire is 247 feet high. Whenever I try to picture a thousand feet, I think of four Wakefield Cathedral towers.

peregrine11.10 a.m., 49ºF, 9ºC, Wakefield Cathedral; A flock of  town pigeons circles and chacking jackdaws return to the belfry ia the louvred shutters, unperturbed by the presence of a peregrine preening on a crocket, halfway up the north-east side of the spire.

It’s wonderful to be able to sit on a bench in the precinct and sketch a peregrine. jackdawsWhen I started birdwatching in the late 1960s and early 1970s, the first peregrines that I saw were in a remote glen in Scotland and on the far south-west corner of Wales, on the Pembrokeshire coast.

Nest platform attached to crenelations.
Nest platform attached to crenelations.

Over much of the country they had been wiped out through partly through persecution but probably more because of pesticide residues in their prey species, which caused a thinning of the shells of their eggs.

Link: Wakefield Peregrines

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