WITH SUCH a brief glimpse, this bird, which was checking out the leaves and the trunk of an olive tree, might have been an Olivaceous Warbler or an Olive Tree Warbler – two fairly indistinct birds. But I noticed a darker head and whitish breast and Barbara got an impression of an eye-ring and of chestnut on the wings, I’m going for Spectacled Warbler, Sylvia conspicullata, especially since neither of us noticed any eye-stripe.
Female Spectacled Warblers are less distinctive than males. It appeared to be chattering to itself.
Cleopatra
Cleopatra, Gonepteryx cleopatra, with a fluttery flight, touching down briefly on the geraniums in my sketch, was the most conspicuous butterfly of our holiday. It’s pastel yellow and larger that our Large ‘Cabbage’ White.
We got a better view (top) of what I’m now convinced is a male Spectacled Warbler. It was a softly chattering little trill and what looked like a small white pennant that attracted my attention to it on the top of a telephone pole. It then flew to the top of an olive.
It was greyer brown than I’d shown the bird this morning, with a markedly darker head. It’s silhouette was more ‘perky’ – tail up, larger head – than your average warbler.
And – the clinching detail – this time I could see a small white ring around its eye.
THE CONES of this cypress have 12 scales. On this fallen fragment the dark green scaly leaflets have dried to ochre brown. In colour, shape and texture these plates, and the tiny scales that cover the leaf stems when seen through a hand lens, remind me of the armour of an armadillo.
10.34 a.m.; the Woodchat Shrike is a summer visitor to Corfu. At 18 cm, it’s almost Song Thrush size.
This bird (right) looked very much like a buzzard but birds of prey are so difficult to identify, especially when circling against a bright sky. We saw two later and heard a buzzard-like peevish ‘mewing’ call.
As I drew this flower at the car parking area at our apartments I didn’t realise that it was a buttercup; the petals are more pointed than those of our British buttercups but I should have guessed as its mace-like seed-heads remind me of the largest of our native buttercups, Kingcups.
The nearest that I can find in the book is Jersey Buttercup, Ranunculus paludosus, which fits in almost every detail, except that I wouldn’t have described it as a ‘hairy perennial’.
I tried pencil when I started drawing the buttercup but soon resorted to the precision of a 01 sized nibbed Pilot Drawing Pen. I didn’t bring my favourite ArtPen with me because, as a fountain pen, it has a tendency to go blotty after being taken on a plane because of the pressure difference. A selection of Pilot Drawing Pens will be fine for the all too short time that we’re here.
11.40 a.m.; Soft quizzical two note call of a Jay. If flies down to a shady spot then up to the branch of an olive. It eats whatever it picked up – an olive or a snail? – then wipes its bill on the branch.
Temp. 29°C, 50% cumulus
Despite the name, Woolly Trefoil, Trifolium tomentosum, is hairless but as the flowerhead grows it becomes more rounded and woolly. These plants at the car parking area were up to 20 cm (8 inches) tall with flowerheads spreading to 1 cm. It is the dominant plant on areas where limestone chippings have been spread.
I draw these spiral seed-pods alongside my sketch of trefoil flowers later, thinking that they belong to it, but they’re actually those of the appropriately named Large Disk Medick, Medicago orbicularis. It grows alongside the trefoil by a path through the olives.
12.50 p.m.; A small, hovering bee-fly, 8 mm long with a straight tongue almost as long again, like a tiny flying kiwi, visits red and white clovers.
1.40 p.m., Benitses Taverna; A large black bumble-bee with blue on it’s rear end has a different, more direct flight to our bumbling varieties. It’s a Carpenter Bee, perhaps Xylocopa violacea.
The Canary Island Date Palm, Phoenix canariensis, introduced and planted widely around the Mediterranean, has inedible fruits.
I’m trying to get in holiday mood, so I feel that I should be trying media that I wouldn’t normally use for my regular work so I did try starting to draw the palm with an Artline ErgoLine Calligraphy Pen with a 2 millimetre nib, a pen that my illustrator friend John Welding is experimenting with at the moment. He gave me this one to try out but the unfamiliar feel made it seem a bit awkward for me, so again, as with the pencil, I went back to my everyday media.
Some day I will experiment! But I’m only here for a week and there is so much to draw so I need to get on with it in reassuringly familiar pen and watercolour wash. At least I drew the palm in pencil rather than ink!
Not so easy to identify when you see it in the water when its legs are hidden, this gull closely resembles our Herring Gull but, as we would have seen immediately if it had been standing on the rocks by the harbour, it’s actually a Yellow-legged Gull, a familiar species in the Mediterranean.
The Beech Marten, Martes foina, was, as many of them unfortunately are, a roadside casualty. It was about the size of a slim, small cat.
This Whinchat was perching on a wire by the substantial ruins of the Roman baths on the slope behind the sea-front properties at Benitses.
IT’S A SHAME that after all the settled dry weather that we’ve had that the Easter bank holiday has turned out so grey but it’s a good opportunity for us to head to town for some shopping we had to do. I painted this terrace of houses from a table in MacDonald’s while Barbara waited in the queue for our veggie burger wraps. MacDonald’s don’t take so very long to serve you; by launching straight into watercolour without any preparatory drawing I got this far in 5 or 10 minutes.
I replenished the bird feeders at lunchtime. Starlings soon came to the mealworm/fat block but the Great Spotted Woodpecker doesn’t seem to like it when its just been put out. It flew in as if it wanted to land then thought better of it and went off to explore the trunk and branches of the crab apple. Perhaps because the block is too slippy for it. It clings to the plastic stem once the Starlings have nibbled down the block a bit.
A surprise visitor was a Nuthatch coming for sunflower hearts an overly cute ‘Little House on the Prairie’ style feeder which our goddaughter Helen bought for us. If it keeps attracting the Nuthatch, I’m prepared to tolerate a little bit of cuteness in our garden.
THERE’S BEEN a strange looking pigeon around, one that looks as if it’s been sprayed with a coat of grey undercoat. It’s been pecking around below the bird table where it was joined by an adult Wood Pigeon. As the mystery pigeon then started flapping its wings in the ‘feed me! feed me!’ mime adopted by most fledglings, it was obvious that the two were related. This evening the adult was accompanied by two plain grey youngsters.
They’ve taken to the sunflower hearts so adult will now be able to introduce them to the greens available; yesterday three adults Wood Pigeons were nibbling the leaves of our purple-sprouting broccoli. We’ve been using the broccoli flower-stems in stir-fry. The Wood Pigeons know a good thing when they taste it, although they seem to be intent on nibbling the leaves to shreds, but probably the flowers are equally acceptable.
The Dolphin Paint Shop
The finished model should have had a tessellated texture. I'm not sure what happened to that, or why my altitude specific 'go-faster' stripe has turned out to be green, black and white.
My attempt at the Create 3D like a Superhero! metablob tutorial has reached the virtual paint shop. It hasn’t quite turned out like author Chipp Walters’ Dolphin underwater recon vehicle, partly, I think, because my version of Vue Pioneer isn’t quite the same as the one referred to in the book but it’s been interesting going through the process and discovering where certain functions of the program are stowed away.
SOMEONE had found this mammal skull and left it on one of the display boards at Ash Landing National Trust reserve, providing an impromptu quiz. What was it?
Even though the long canines at the front are missing, it’s obvious that this isn’t a rabbit or hare, it’s too large and long anyway, and to me it isn’t as broad and powerful as I’d expect for a badger so I’m going to guess at Red Fox.
And the answer is . . .
Yes, according to Mammals of Britain, Their Tracks, Trails and Signs (Lawrence and Brown, 1967), that’s what it is.
I’ve added their labels to my photograph. Alveoli are small cavities or pits, and here in an anatomical sense, that means the bony sockets for the root of a tooth. These three holes supported one tooth, as you can see from the opposite side of the jaw.
Oh, in case it’s not clear, the two lines are intended to indicate the cranium between the two eye sockets.
The Duck that held up the Traffic
This Mallard duck, followed by a companion drake, wandered over to the bench as we waited for the return ferry. As we had no bread to share we thought that she’d lose interest but she looked around then settled on the ground at Barbara’s feet, the drake standing close by. When the ferry arrived and the ramp rattled into place she stood up again and decided that now was the time to move – holding up the disembarking traffic as she waddled back unhurriedly to the waterside with her partner.
IT’S GOOD to return and re-walk the same route at this time of year as there are changes daily in plant and bird life. The glossy leaves of Bluebell are coming up in the woods around Newmillerdam and on the lake, frozen over only a month ago, there are three Goosanders, a male and two ‘red-heads’ (either females or juveniles).
Also putting in its first appearance (for us on our infrequent visits anyway) is a Great-crested Grebe. We’ve seen the Little Grebe or Dabchick but not its Great-crested relative. By the size of its crests and cheek feathers, I’m sure this is a male. It’s unusual not to see them together as a pair at this time of year. Perhaps she’s already on a nest on a quiet corner of the lakeside.
THE FIRST birds to find our new fat (with mealworms) feeder were the Starlings but this morning a female Great Spotted Woodpecker was feeding on it. We’ve rarely had woodpeckers feeding so near the house.
Adobe Illustrator
In my attempt to learn all about my new computer and all the new programs that I have on it, I’m going through the tutorials for Adobe Illustrator.
Even following the step-by-steps on how to construct a figure, I’m having the greatest difficulty achieving anything that looks remotely like an illustration. I think this is because my normal drawing process is so different from the layers and objects approach of this vector graphics program.
The calligraphy brush which I used for the mug brings me nearer to the kind of drawing that I’m comfortable with.
THERE’S A NEW Pheasant, a cock Pheasant distinctively marked with white flashes above the eyes, in the garden this afternoon and, at least when I happen to look out and see him, he’s not being challenged by our regular bird, who’s down amongst the snowdrops near the hedge with a female ambling along beside him. The newcomer has also brought a partner. The two of them stroll up to the bird feeders.
The Treecreeper that works it’s way up the north side of the Golden Hornet crab apple tree – the side covered with powdery green algae – is an infrequent visitor to the garden. It makes its way up to the top of one of the main branches then flies off towards the large oak in a back garden three doors up the road.
Saint Valentine’s is traditionally the day that birds pair up and there’s a definite buzz of spring about. I’ve been up in attic and shortly afterwards I’m aware of a hum next to me; a queen wasp that was probably hibernating in the attic has a emerged and is sitting at the bottom of the window whirring its wings. I let it out but I’m afraid that it’s still a little too early for her to start a new colony.
WE CUT the autumn-fruiting raspberry canes down to about a foot a few weeks ago, although we should have done this a bit earlier when they became dormant in the autumn. Soon they will be springing into new growth, so it’s now time to cut them down to the ground. However hit-and-miss we are with pruning, we always get a decent crop from this variety, Joan Jay. The canes need tying back when they’re in leaf and producing fruit but at this time of year you can appreciate what small footprint they take up in the raised bed – about 3 feet by 1 foot.
We’ve still got jars of jam that we made with them in late summer and early autumn.
It’s a good idea to thin them out and stop them spreading too much so we dig out five plants to give to friends who want to start growing them.
This little Toad had a narrow escape; Paul the gardener and I were clearing the old fence panels behind the greenhouse and it was only when I was sweeping the path that I uncovered it, crouching in a hollow under a sheet of plastic – an old potting compost bag – that I’d put down some time ago to suppress weeds. I’d been working right next to it but luckily it had survived unscathed. I released it out of harm’s way behind the compost bins.
Crouched next to the Toad in his lair was a small round slug. Perhaps this slug was a commensal companion; destined to become lunch!
A Robin flits about us as we work. It’s evidently noticed that, as we cut back matted ivy and prickly cotoneaster to remove the tumbled and twisted old larch-lap fence panels, we are disturbing woodlice and spiders.
WOOD PIGEONS have been gathering in the treetops – about a hundred of them fly up over the wood on this cold and misty morning. Their regular foraging in the fields has been first snow-covered then frozen solid this week. We’ve got a book delivery to make today and we feel glad that we didn’t have to set out yesterday when we pass a car, which must have skidded on the ice, being towed out of a hedge. Casualty departments were 40 to 50% busier after the freezing rain.
After feeding on sunflower hearts around our bird feeders, the Pheasants often pause to nibble the leaves of broccoli in our cabbage patch as they walk down the garden path back towards the meadow and the wood.
A Heron, looking rather fed up, sits hunched on a perch for an hour or more on a branch of one of the Crack Willows by the stream. It appears to be undisturbed by any dog walkers who may be passing by below.
Voles, Moles and Unwelcome Guests
There are vole holes in the lawn and mole-hills in the flower border near the bird table but the burrow that I’m not so keen to see is one that leads from under a paving slab straight under the plastic compost bin. I can see that the chopped end of an onion has been dragged down from the bin. I want to recycle all our vegetable peelings but we can’t control which creatures are attracted to nibble them. I think that the answer is to re-think the way we compost anything that is potentially edible and relocate our plastic compost bins, currently behind the shed, to the main wooden compost bins at the end of the garden beyond the greenhouse. We never put any cooked food on the compost heap but then, being brought up in the Yorkshire tradition of thrift, we contribute virtually nothing to the estimated 7.2 million tons of food thrown out each year by households in the United Kingdom. It has been estimated that the average family with children throws out about £680 of food each year.
Ivy Berries
This evening two Wood Pigeons fly down to eat berries on the mass of Ivy that grows over our neighbour’s fence. A male Blackbird also tucks into this seasonal supply.
WITH SUCH a brief glimpse, this bird, which was checking out the leaves and the trunk of an olive tree, might have been an Olivaceous Warbler or an Olive Tree Warbler – two fairly indistinct birds. But I noticed a darker head and whitish breast and Barbara got an impression of an eye-ring and of chestnut on the wings, I’m going for Spectacled Warbler, Sylvia conspicullata, especially since neither of us noticed any eye-stripe.
Cleopatra, Gonepteryx cleopatra, with a fluttery flight, touching down briefly on the geraniums in my sketch, was the most conspicuous butterfly of our holiday. It’s pastel yellow and larger that our Large ‘Cabbage’ White.
It was greyer brown than I’d shown the bird this morning, with a markedly darker head. It’s silhouette was more ‘perky’ – tail up, larger head – than your average warbler.
This Mallard duck, followed by a companion drake, wandered over to the bench as we waited for the return ferry. As we had no bread to share we thought that she’d lose interest but she looked around then settled on the ground at Barbara’s feet, the drake standing close by. When the ferry arrived and the ramp rattled into place she stood up again and decided that now was the time to move – holding up the disembarking traffic as she waddled back unhurriedly to the waterside with her partner.
