Richard Bell's nature sketchbook since 1998
A low tide had exposed all the mud in Bridlington Harbour, attracting turnstones and redshank. This adult herring gull was in streaky-headed non-breeding plumage but it had raised a chick during the summer, which was still following, hunching itself up as it begged, fairly continuously, for food.
The adult looked embarrassed by the attention but I didn’t see it offer the youngster any food.
Up on the balcony at the Boathouse café with a panorama of the lower end of the lake at Newmillerdam on a fine autumn morning with black-headed gulls swooshing by was like being on a mini cruise, especially when accompanied by a pumpkin latte (well, you’ve got to try it once at this time of year).
There were 25 tufted ducks in a scattered group, mostly just resting, although I did see one tackling a medium-sized freshwater mussel.
Many of the gulls were in halfway, teenage, plumage with a shallow inverted ‘V’ on each wing.
The three cygnets of the resident mute swan family were at that halfway stage too, with bands of brown on wings and across the tail covets.
The lone great-crested grebe was probably one of this year’s young, or possibly an adult moulting into dull winter plumage.
We took a break at the RSPB Saltholme wetlands reserve on our way to, and back from, Northumberland last week. The panoramic windows of the first floor cafe look out over one of the lagoons, so we were watching dunlin, godwits and gadwall as we ate our lunch.
On the return journey the birding highlight was a pectoral sandpiper a migrant that was a long way off course as it headed south as it breeds in Arctic Canada.
To the south east Roseberry Topping makes a craggy a punctuation in the looming bulk of the North York Moors.
On our way north along the M1 near Garforth we glimpsed two roe deer standing facing each other in a large stubble field. As we drove by they clashed antlers (10.20 a.m., 15 September).
Today Brodsworth Hall was the appropriate setting for a Victorian falconry (and hawking, there is a difference) display by Raphael Historic Falconry. Also featuring the equally impressive Cosmic the black Labrador, currently being trained as a falconry dog (falcons and hawks don’t have a sense of smell).
Sketching the ducks, cormorant, Canada geese and in-between black-headed gulls, some juveniles, some adults beginning to lose their black heads. We were surprised how few – if any – there were at the black-headed gull colony at St Aidan’s last week. They’d been so noisy in the spring and early summer. Now I guess they’ve dispersed with a hundred or more – perhaps St Aidan’s birds – turning up at Newmillerdam, where they can perch on fallen willows on the quieter bank of the lake and keep an eye out for hand-outs on the war memorial side.
And yes, I might have drawn more of them if I hadn’t been sidetracked by a Danish cinnamon pastry at the Boathouse.
These coots have raised a brood at the nest site I drew last year near in the corner by the outlet of the lake.
Thanks to instant communication, I was able to message my photograph of the Danish pastry to the far end of the lake as a warning to Barbara that I’d got tied up on essential business, however I beat her and her brother back to the car park and had time to draw two of the chimney stacks of the Fox and Hounds, adding the colour later from a photograph.
In May 1834 Charles Waterton had himself lowered by rope down the cliffs at Flamborough by two local egg-gatherers:
‘The sea was roaring at the base of this stupendous wall of rocks; thousands and tens of thousands of wild fowl were in an instant on the wing: the kittiwakes and jackdaws rose in circling flight; while most of the guillemots, razorbills, and puffins, left the ledges of the rocks, in a straight and downward line, with a peculiarly quick motion of the pinions, till they plunged into the ocean.’
Charles Waterton, ‘Essays on Natural History’ (1835-1857)
My version of this scene was based on this Victorian engraving, artist uncredited except for the initials in the bottom left hand corner, which could be those of the engraver.
Black-headed gull feathers from St Aidan’s and a seabird feather of some kind -possibly a kittiwake or a juvenile gannet? – from Bempton. Freshwater snail shell from St Aidan’s.
8.35 a.m.: Two male blackbirds have decided that the border between their territories runs along the narrow gap between a yellow grit hopper and a red recycling bin at the top end of the Health Centre car park.
First one hops forward, head held high, breast puffed out in ritualised belligerence, then it crosses the invisible line and its rival retaliates, driving it back.
This continues for a minute with the cut-and-thrust rhythm of a closely fought tennis tournament until they meet head-to-head at the half-way point and the contest erupts vertically into the air, the blackbirds lashing out with their feet like a pair of heraldic beasts.
This morning, in the short time I had available, I decided to write rather than draw, so my drawing of the rival blackbirds is from a sketchbook from March 1999, which I wrote up, using pretty much the same phrases as I did today, in my Wild West Yorkshire nature diary, www.wildyorkshire.co.uk
The rival blackbirds sketch appeared in my published sketchbook/nature journal Rough Patch, a sketchbook from the wilder side of the garden, published in 2005 (and still available, see link below!).
Neighbours, Wild West Yorkshire nature diary, Thursday, 4th March, 1999
Rough Patch, a sketchbook from the wilder side of the garden
Canada goose, mallard and what may be crow feathers which we picked up in the Deer Park at Wentworth Castle this morning.
Middlestown, 10.20 am:Forty or more starlings wheel about overhead and a female blackbird with food in her beak calls in alarm. Possible dangers for her chicks include a black cat which has just walked into the hedgerow and a crow keeping watch from the roof of the health centre.
The shoppers and the mating sparrows were drawn at Birstall.
