Richard Bell's nature sketchbook since 1998
Instead of weeding out these foxglove seedlings, I’m saving them for my meadow area.
Chicory tends to take over from most of the wild flowers that I try to introduce but foxgloves stand a fighting chance as they colonise open woodland and burnt areas and they prefer dry or moist acid soils. I’m not going to be able to establish the kind of wild flower meadow that you’d find on chalk downland but I should have more success in creating a woodland edge habitat.
I found this adult common shrew on one of the veg beds and my number one suspect for dispatching it has to be Basil a neighbour’s Himalayan Persian cat who currently seems to have exclusive hunting rights for our back garden. Shrews are distasteful so my guess is that Basil caught this one amongst the tussocks of grass in the meadow at the edge of the wood and abandoned it on his regular route back home.
Basil was making a half-hearted attempt to pounce on a hen pheasant yesterday, so a shrew wouldn’t present any challenges for him.
Shrews must 90% of their body weight in a day, but there are plenty of woodlice, spiders, beetles, slugs and worms in the meadow and around the edges of our back garden.
We’ve never had a better crop of potatoes than last year when we grew Maris Peer, a second early. They were versatile, heavy cropping and we didn’t have any waste because of blemishes or damage. We like their taste and texture; they never ‘boiled in the water’ and turned slushy. However, we were late buying them and our local garden centre had only these last few left, so we’ve also gone for some Maris Bard extra earlies.
This drawing took just over an hour and it’s unusual for me as it hasn’t been drawn on my iPad. It’s drawn with a dip pen with a John Heath’s Telephone Nib 0278 F and De Atramentis Black Document Ink in a Pink Pig cartridge paper sketchbook. I enjoyed the feel of pen on paper again, so I’ll be doing a few more dip pen drawings.
Because of the wet autumn and winter, I’ve only just cut the long shoots off our Golden Hornet crab apple. Recycling some twine from a wigwam that I’d made for climbing plants last year, I’ve tied them into bundles to create a habitat which I’m hoping might attract solitary bees, beetles or other invertebrates.
I would have done the same if I’d got around to cutting back the long shoots on the rowan in the front garden too but a pair of blue tits are showing a lot of interest in the nestbox there, so I’ll leave that job until the autumn.
We cut the Joan Jay autumn-fruiting raspberry canes down to 18 inches last autumn and now in spring they can be cut right down to two or three inches, as they flower on new growth. I’ve cut them in half to produce a couple of bundles, one of which I’ve inserted into a cavity between the rocks at the edge of the raised bed.
Last year was our best ever for the two small cordon apples by the patio but this year out of the few small apples that grew, all were blemished by insects or pecked by birds.
We grow a double cordon of Howgate Wonder and a single stem of Golden Spire. They’re in a tiny bed close to the wall of next door’s conservatory so in September I added a thick mulch of garden compost to refresh the soil. I also planted dozens of crocus bulbs.
This female garden spider, Araneus diadematus, has spun her orb web in the greenhouse. The pattern on its abdomen gives it the alternative names of cross spider or diadem spider.
The herald moth, Scoliopteryx libatrix, feeds after dark on flowers and overripe berries, which probably explains why this one is hiding amongst our raspberry canes. Its larvae feed on willows, aspen and poplars.
I’m aware that what to me seems like a neglected corner is home to some of the creatures that I try to encourage in our garden. As I clear the chicory from the mint bed, I disturb a common frog.
The frog is outnumbered by slugs and snails, spiders and harvestmen.
My next task is to clear my little meadow area which is overrun with chicory. I want to make a fresh start and sow a cornfield mix to flower next spring and summer. I’ll clear it again at the end of the season in attempt to discourage the chicory.
After a record-breaking late summer bank holiday with temperatures of 28C in Leeds, we had a downpour yesterday evening. The paving sand that I’d swept into the cracks a couple of days ago has been washed out in places by the overspill from our driveway. The dished concrete channel in front of the garage door can’t cope with the run-off from a rainstorm.
It’s been a good test for a small area. I’ll buy a small bag of cement and make a dry mix – three of sand to one of cement – with the remaining sand to brush into the crevices on the sloping driveway.
Dansand No Grow Block Paving Sand: I now realise that I should have gone for the version that they do with added cement!
Yesterday, after taking out a few weeds, I swept sand into the cracks between the paving slabs by the front door. Already this morning, there are signs of activity. Could these be tracks left by an insect? Or a woodlouse?
Something has been active in the corner. I didn’t notice this tiny snail shell until I spotted in the photograph. It might have been dislodged from a crevice yesterday but I suspect that it’s been introduced along with the sand.
The sand is from Denmark. The grains are small, mostly less than a millimetre, and well-rounded, so perhaps this is windblown sand from a former dune system. Denmark has extensive dunes along its western, North Sea, coast and, further inland, extensive areas of glacial sand and gravel.
In my photograph, the glassy grains are quartz and I think that the larger, fleshy-looking ochre fragments are feldspar.
The seven species that I disturbed as I weeded around the paving stones yesterday come from seven different families, four classes and three phyla, so, within inches of our front door, we have an annelid worm, a gastropod mollusc, an isopod crustacean and a social insect.
I disturbed a large ant as I swept the driveway, which I guessed was a queen. The queen disposes of her wings after her nuptial flight, then sets about finding a suitable site – such as here under the paving stones – to start her colony.
Coincidentally, later, a few yards away, I spotted a worker ant carrying a single transparent wing, which looked like one that had been discarded by a queen.
| Common Name | Family or Order | Class or Subphylum | Phylum |
| Earthworm | Lumbricidae | Clitellata | Annelida |
| Garden Snail, Helix aspersa | Helicidae | Gastropoda | Mollusca |
| Keelbacked Slug | Limacidae | Gastropoda | Mollusca |
| Woodlouse | Isopoda | Crustacea | Mollusca |
| Shield Bug | Hemiptera | Insecta | Arthropoda |
| Rove Beetle | Staphylinidae | Insecta | Arthropoda |
| Ant | Formicidae | Insecta | Arthropoda |
We’ve had record temperatures for a late bank holiday so, again, I’ve been working in the shade at the front of the house, weeding the cracks between the paving slabs before cleaning up with the masonry brush and sweeping sand into the gaps with a soft brush.
I didn’t use the hand cultivator today, but it was more appealing to draw than the plastic-handled weeder that I had been using.
As I worked around the front door, I was surprised by the variety of life on our doorstep: a garden snail, woodlice, ants, small earthworms, a tiny rove beetle and one green shield bug nymph. The nymph looks like a smaller version of the adult but it lacks wings. This one had to laboriously walk over towards the cover of the hosta to escape my brushwork.
One again this is a Procreate iPad drawing and today I used just two of the available tools: the Gesinski Pen and the Round Brush.
If I’d been painting on paper, I would have used opaque gouache to add the light-coloured bristles against the darker background. This time I added them with Gesinski Pen with a 100% opaque light colour.
I was determined not to use an eraser but when I was finishing the drawing, I realised that a false start that I’d made with one of the prongs of the cultivator was throwing the whole drawing out of proportion. I opted for ‘painting’ over it in white, to produce a similar effect to when I used to correct illustrations with a dab of white gouache. The correction is intended to remain visible.