Richard Bell's nature sketchbook since 1998
4.55 p.m., 45ºF, 7ºC: The rain has helped the cowslips that I planted in the meadow area to settle in. No umbrellas, pop-up tents or folding chairs today; I simply crouch down amongst the dripping grasses and get on with my drawing. The rain spots will be part of the drawing.
Adding pot-grown wild flowers to the meadow is working well. Whenever I have twenty minutes to spare, I can head down the garden and find something fresh to draw.
3 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.
Greenfinch, 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.
3.05 p.m.: A dunnock bursts into hurried song from the top of the freshly green hedge, then flies off on its rounds.
House sparrows are engaged in some dispute down in the hedge, repeatedly cheep, cheep, cheeping at each other.
The breeze whips around as a large grey cloud arrives from the west. Hanging from my bag in the sun, my key-fob thermometer shows a pleasant 70ºF, 22ºC; as the sun goes behind the cloud the temperature drops 20 degrees Fahrenheit to 50ºF, 10ºC.
A large bumble bee prospects under a pile of mossy/grassy debris by the compost bin. I’ve been considering providing an insect hotel.
Common knapweed, ribwort plantain and cow parsley are sprouting in our meadow area; less welcome are the creeping buttercup and particularly the chicory which, attractive as its sky blue flowers are, could easily take over, spreading by its rootstock in our deep, rich soil.
Gold-tipped feathery moss spreads over the bare patches of soil. My aim is to weed out the chicory and docks and this year to plant pot-grown wild flowers to add some interest and wildlife value . . . and to give me more subjects to draw.
4.45 p.m., 51ºF, 11ºC: Grape hyacinth was included in the ‘good for pollinators’ collection of bulbs that we planted in the shady, north north-west facing bed below the window at the front of the house. It’s the first time that we’ve had this familiar looking spring bulb in flower in our garden.
These miniature pansies, Viola tricolor, have numerous common names including heartsease and love-in-idleness. We’re planting them in our revamped bed in the front garden (see below)
Bees have to force their way past those lateral hairs when the flower starts to open. Do the combs of hairs loosen pollen already on the bee so that it gets transferred to stigma just behind them? Or do they help
keep other insects out?
The lateral hairs are said to reflect UV light so they must present a glowing invitation to bees. The dark honey guide lines look as if they’ve been added with a fibre-tipped pen.
Coxley Valley, 5.30 p.m., 45ºF, 8ºC: At the entrance to the woods this rough hewn stone gatepost stands by the beck next to an ivy-covered alder. Fresh leaves of wild garlic grow behind it, escaping being trampled on a wide and muddy stretch of the path.
There’s a bit of an evening chorus amongst the birds – the wistful robin, the monotonous wood pigeon and the powerful projection of the wren – but when the blackbird starts singing we’re in a different league: melodious, mellow and relaxed.
2 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.
In the hedgerows ground-ivy, red dead-nettle, chickweed, dandelion, dogs mercury and lesser celandine are in flower, 
although on this cool afternoon the celandine flowers are closed.
10.45 a.m., 48ºF, 9ºc, overcast, cool; Hemlock water dropwort grows on a silty, gravelly inside bend of the stream by the sawn-off bough of a crack willow. Its luxuriant, fresh-looking rosettes spring up along the banks and even in a few places from the stream bed itself. It’s not surprising that none of the leaves has been nibbled because every part of this plant is extremely toxic.
The harsh chatter of magpies contrasts with the restful rhythmic babbling of the brook. That’s a cliche but babbling is the only way to describe it this morning.
A smart looking grey wagtail, a male, performs a mid-air pirouette when I disturb it and its mate flitting about over a gravelly section of the stream at the entrance to the wood.
A grey squirrel has been leaning over to reach our solid-looking ‘squirrel proof’ sunflower heart feeder. As it hangs upside down from the pole, it rotates the feeder with its front legs, always in a clockwise direction. Eventually this unscrews the feeder from its hook and the lid comes off as it crashes to the ground. I pick 
up what seed I can and replace the feeder. Blackbird, robin, goldfinch and pheasant appreciate the bonus of spilt seed but it’s the wood pigeon that steadily gets through it.
3.10 p.m., 45°F, 7ºC; A little black fly visits the tiny flowers dotted with yellow stamens of the golden saxifrage, growing on the bank of the beck in the wood. In Plant and Planet, Anthony Huxley writes that golden saxifrage is also pollinated by springtails. Springtails feed amongst the leaf litter and need humid conditions.
It’s not obvious from my drawing, but, when I went back and checked, I found that this is the opposite-leaved golden saxifrage (there’s also an alternate-leaved species), Chrysoslenium oppositifolium, a common native plant of wet, acid soils in habitats such as woodland flushes, springs and stream sides.
The golden saxifrage is dotted along the waters edge like dapples of sunlight in this rare un-trampled corner of the wood, alongside bramble, nettle, lesser celandine and bluebell (not yet in flower) which spread further onto the banking amongst holly, hazel and hawthorn.
Blackbird and robin are singing, a pair of wrens perch on a log and flit off into the undergrowth. There’s a clatter of wings in the top of an ivy-covered alder as one wood pigeon harasses another.
The mixed pack of Wildlife Haven bulbs that we put in a shady, clayey north-east facing bed at the front of the house last autumn are doing well. I’ll put some more elsewhere in the garden next autumn.
The crocuses Cream Beauty and Ruby Giant are in flower but not open on this cool afternoon (39ºF, 4ºC).
Winter aconites are starting to show and we’re curious to see the aliums and the eranthis also included in this selection.
I prefer the miniature daffodils to the full size version in this bed. The clumps of large daffodils usually end up sprawling over the path, weighed down after rain.
Link: Verve and Blooma who produced the collection of Wildlife Haven bulbs for pollinators (which were stocked at B&Q last autumn)