First Day of Spring

cumulus

It rained for much of today but by 4 o’clock the towering cumulus clouds had passed over and it was bright enough to encourage me to put on my 1970s black wellies and cross a soggy, mossy lawn to trim back the ivy by the shed.

The birds are already singing and showing interest in denser sections of the hawthorn hedge. Luckily I pruned the rowan, crab apple and the holly hedge at the end of the garden a month ago.

frogspawn

Barbara spotted some frog activity last week and today I noticed two clumps of spawn in the usual, sunniest, corner of the pond.

Tough Work

‘Did you manage to get any gardening done after drawing this and photographing the robin?’, a friend on Instagram asks me. Well yes, Jacqui, you’re going to be amazed at the transformation!

These Olympus Tough macro shots, taken while weeding the potato bed, include a holly blue butterfly.

Tool Belt

tool belt

I’ve been working my way over the veg beds weeding, mainly with a small hand fork but occasionally I need a pair of secateurs so I’ve gone for my garden tool belt. Also in there, my Olympus Tough camera. I had been keeping it in the leg pocket of my works trousers but if the resident robin hops down in front of me, or a holly blue butterfly lands on the nearby marjoram, it takes too long to unzip the pocket and retrieve the camera.

Garden Snail

garden snail

As I weeded the path behind the raised bed, one of the garden snail shells I spotted this morning was smashed, probably by a thrush; another was occupied, so I popped it into a crevice and a third was empty, a good subject to try out some Procreate illustration techniques on as I get back into my course.

The Greenhouse Gang

toad

I’m afraid it’s that time of year again when I have to briefly disturb our resident toad in the greenhouse. He or she isn’t too pleased about it but I make sure there’s a quiet corner under a plant tray available as I continue moving pots and pulling up spurge, chickweed and dandelion.

spider

This spider with a plump abdomen is the most common beneath trays and plant pots. This is the male, the one with the ‘boxing glove’ pedipalps.

Rose Sawfly

rose sawfly
Body length, about 1 cm.

Resting on the wheelie bin by the hedge what looks like the Large Rose Sawfly, Arge pagana. The females have ‘saws’ to cut into plants when laying eggs. There’s a self-seeded rose growing up in the beech hedge right next to the bins.

Drawn in Procreate, using my homemade ‘worn nib’ brush for the line work.

Grasshopper

grasshopper

The end of the garden has become a bit of a grassroot jungle and as I pulled bindweed out from around the compost heap I disturbed this small grasshopper.

grasshopper

Perhaps a stripe-winged grasshopper or common green?

We don’t often spot grasshoppers in the garden. This might be our first record.

Jenny

Jenny

Jenny, natural history illustrator, drawing by our pond. She recently completed a commission to illustrate an information board about the wildlife at a pond on a nature reserve in West Sussex.

Jenny's drawing
Jenny’s drawing of the vegetation around our pond

She started on John Norris Wood’s natural history illustration course at the Royal College of Art a year after I left, in 1976 and graduated in 1979, focussing on the Chelsea Physic Garden, it’s history and plants.

Squabs

Wood pigeons

Two young wood pigeons looking relaxed in our golden hornet crab apple.