Richard Bell's nature sketchbook since 1998
George Street, Wakefield: Wall-rue and Maidenhair Spleenwort on a brick wall which probably dates back to the days of the cattle market, and a mossy pool on the roots of an old flowering cherry. The ‘well kept secret’ herbs and spices are served at Kentucky Fried Chicken, Westgate Retail Park.
Back down a rather overgrown bark chip path to my ‘Rough Patch’ in our back garden. The birds have finished nesting and it’s time to cut back.
This is my first attempt at composing a backing track in Garageband and also my first experiment with a dji Osmo gimbal mount for my iPhone.
Happy birthday to Sue (a few days ago) who, as a member of our local wild flower group, follows in the footsteps of Thomas Gissing, pharmacist of Westgate, Wakefield, father of novelist George.
The fronds of the male fern by the pond are beginning to dry and curl at the ends, the back of the fronds covered with red-brown spore-producing sori.
Garlic mustard and bracken in the clearing at the far end of the main car park at Newmillerdam. On our return journey via Seckar and Woolley Edge we saw lots of garlic mustard on the verges alongside bluebells and dandelions, growing beneath roadside oaks.
Unfurling at the back of our pond, one of our commonest ferns, Male Fern, Dryopteris filix-mas. Most of the year it’s just a shuttlecock, so not that interesting to draw, but I like it when the croziers are opening into fronds.
Mahonia, otherwise known as Oregon Grape; croziers of unfurling ferns with matching wrought ironwork; cross-bedding in magnesian limestone and dryad’s saddle fungus at Brodsworth this morning.
2.15 p.m., 29°F, -3°C: I’ve switched to fibre tip pen this afternoon; it tends to speed up my drawing as moves about so smoothly in any direction. That is just as well because the temperature has dropped below freezing so I can’t get too involved with the intricacies of the fronds of the male fern growing at the corner of the raised bed behind the pond.
A dunnock delivers its thin trilling song from a perch in the hedge. A female blackbird gives a scolding alarm call from the crab. There’s a rattly call from a mistle thrush. The redwing has been back, feeding on the squishy brown crab apples.
There’s a monotonous song from a wood pigeon. It’s a five note phrase, repeated two or three times, which The Handbook of British Birds gives as “cōō-cōōō-cōō, cōō-cōō “.
Making a note to remember the rhythm, I write ‘I don’t like plumbing’, but more memorable mnemonics that have been suggested are ‘my toe bleeds, Betty’, ‘take two cows, Taffy’, or ‘a proud Wood-pig-eon’.
69°F, 20°C, 10.25 a.m.: At the lower end of the walled garden at Nostell Priory there are two squares of wild flower meadow. Amongst the grasses, buttercups and dog daisies there are small drifts of yellow rattle, Rhinanthus minor, a plant that is semi-parasitic on the roots of grasses.
Despite a superficial resemblance, it isn’t related to yellow archangel, which I photographed in Stoneycliffe Woods at the beginning of the month: yellow archangel is a relative of the dead-nettles, one of the Lamiacea (mint) family, while yellow 
rattle is a member of the Scrophulariaceae (figwort) family, related to louseworts, cow-wheats, speedwells and foxglove.
A tall shuttlecock tuft of fronds of male fern, Dryopteris filix-mas, grows by the woodland path near the Menagerie. It has pale brown scales on its stems, which helps distinguish it from another tufted fern, the broad-buckler, which has a dark stripe running down the centre of each scale. The broad-buckler doesn’t form such a robust looking shuttlecock of fronds.
The curry plant growing in the stone trough in the courtyard of the stable block at Nostell Priory is just about to come into flower. As its name suggests, it gives off a convincing aroma of curry if you brush against it or rub its leaves. If this is designed to deter insects, it isn’t working in the case of these black aphids that are sap-sucking along its stems.
Surplus sap excreted by the aphids is collected by ants, which have been observed to defend and sometimes to move the aphids, like farmers herding cattle. I spotted just one ant in the macro photographs that I took.
Also sap-sucking, a spittle bug. The nymph of the spittle bug produces a protective covering of ‘cuckoo spit’ by blowing bubbles in the surplus sap that it excretes.
“This is one of the commonest of our Ferns, and one which is easy of recognition. It is abundant in all parts of our island, now hanging down from the gnarled branch or sturdy trunk of the old oak, now growing in large clumps on the hedge-bank, and forming a good foreground for the artist’s sketch ; while sometimes it may be seen waving its bright green leaves above the cottage thatch, or on stone wall or rugged rock.”
Ann Pratt, The Ferns of Great Britain, c. 1850
3.30 p.m., overcast, light breeze, 43ºF, 7ºC; I’m pleased to find that the fronds polypody fern that I started drawing on the Caphouse Colliery nature trail a week ago are still in the same position. The upper surface of the trunk of the old hawthorn that its growing on is covered with a gold-tipped moss.
I love the quote from Anne Pratt (above) but I hadn’t realised that she also provided the illustrations for her book The Ferns of Great Britain. Searching the Internet for a date for the book I was surprised to find a portrait of her.
Anne Pratt, 1806-1893, was a celebrated botanist and the author of twenty books.
Ferns of Great Britain by Anne Pratt
Anne Pratt, Wikipedia article
William Dickes, Wikipedia article