Category: Garden

Spring in my Step

wheel-barrowIn my determination to draw a page a day, which I’ve kept up since before Christmas, I’ve had to resort to working a lot from photographs taken on walks to fill in the gaps for particular days. What a refreshing change to have the time to get into the back garden for an hour or so to draw from life.

I feel as if I’ve got so much more freedom working from the real thing; freedom to be less literal with colour and detail. Because I’ve got a better understanding of what’s in front of my eyes I can be more playful in the way I draw it.

Whenever I go to a movie if there’s a 3D version that’s the performance that I’ll go for and it’s the same with drawing. I can relax and let the drawing flow more freely because in real life – HD, HDR and 3D as it is – I’ve got a better understanding of how things are arranged in space – for instance woodland seen through a hedge. That kind of thing can give you cause to stop and ponder when you’re working from a photograph, which breaks the flow a bit.

I’m convinced that I’ll be getting out more often as we move into spring.

My drawing might not be as resolved as the subject deserves. Perhaps if I’d had two hours I’d have gone for something more ambitious but any drawing is better than none. I look forward to having the time to go over the top with a drawing.

Wood Chip Paths

WE WERE busy over the bank holiday weekend. Going through the process of shovelling and sieving again and again I thought that it would be good practice for me to make a little step by step YouTube video.

It took about ten goes for me to record a commentary that sounded reasonably coherent!

Brown Mottlegill

Drawing of the fungiSummer warmth and a few heavy showers have triggered the growth of some small fungi on our dewy back lawn this morning. They’re going to get trimmed off when I get around to cutting the lawn so I pick them to draw and to take some close-ups using my USB microscope.

The cap which is about a centimetre across is smooth with no trace of ridges. It has dark brown gills, which I’d describe as distant as opposed to close or crowded.

gills

In this photograph the gills are emarginate, meaning that there is a notch where they attach to the stem. But the notch isn’t as clear in this cross section of the cap;cap in cross-section

The circular stem is hollow and there’s no swelling at its base.

Spore Prints

Brown Mottlegill spore printThe pattern of growth, as far as I can judge by this little group, is trooping. I couldn’t see any trace of a fairy ring starting to form.

I’m taking spore prints which might help narrow down what kind of fungus it is.

spores of brown mottlegill

My thanks to Steve Clements for this suggestion;

Most likely a Mottlegill (Panaeolus or Panaeolina) – the commonest one on mown grass round my part of Sheffield is Brown Hay Cap – Panaeolina foenesecii – which is supposed to be slightly hallucinogenic. The spores are blackish, and warted (under the microscope). The gills look mottled under a hand lens.

The Collins Guide calls this species Brown Mottlegill and adds that the ‘dark brown-black’ spores are ‘ellip to lemon-shaped’ which is how they look in 200x photograph that I took with my microscope.

Garden Snail

garden snail, Helix aspersaThe Garden Snail, Helix aspersa, has a thin, lightweight shell but that still looks cumbersome as it explores a fern-filled crevice in an old wall (see previous posts). As I drew it from a photograph that I’d taken this morning I noticed traces of damage to the shell with what appears to be a healed break in the rim and hairline fracture on the ‘back’ of its shell.

I imagine it being surprised, perhaps by a bird, retracting into its shell then falling from the wall onto the pavement below.

garden snail, Helix aspersa

A second snail clung precariously to the base of the stems of Common Ragwort, growing from a crevice near the top of the six foot high wall amongst the fronds of Rusty-back Fern and Wall Rue.

Yellow-tail Moth

yellow-tail moth, Euproctis similis
Featherlike antennae help the male track down the larger female.

When disturbed the Yellow-tail Moth, Euproctis similis,  sticks the end of its abdomen up between its wings. Both male and female have the yellow tip although it is larger in the female.

yellow-tail sketches

Some female moths spread pheromones by raising their tails and the males use their feathery antennae to home in on them.

So why does this male raise his ‘tail’ when disturbed? Is it a way to surprise a predator?

Male yellow-tail moth, Euproctis similis
The male has dark spots on his wings.

It’s the first time that this species has turned up in the moth trap.

The male seen from below.
The male seen from below.

Yellow-tail moth caterpillars have been found on Japanese Knotweed, an invasive garden escape which very few native insects feed on, but they’re more likely to feed on sallow, blackthorn and hawthorn.

Broad-Bordered Underwing

broad-bordered yellow underwingTHERE WERE at least half a dozen Large Yellow Underwings in the moth trap this morning plus some of their smaller relatives but this is the first time that I’ve seen the Broad-bordered Yellow Underwing, Notcua  fimbriata. This is a male; the female is paler.

broad-bordered yellow underwingIt’s more typical of wooded areas than gardens but as the foodplants of its larvae include docks, nettles, brambles, sallows and willows it’s not surprising that it has turned up here.

Fan-foot, Dun-bar and the Silver Y

Silver Y Moth, Autographa gammasilver yAlthough it’s years since I last saw a Silver Y moth, Autographa gamma, I didn’t have any difficulty in putting a name to it, thanks to the conspicuous calligraphic Y on its wing. This is the first time that it has turned up inSilver Y sketch the moth trap and that could be because, as an immigrant each year to Britain, it has taken until now to reach Yorkshire.

Dun-bar

dun-barThere are so many brownish, streaked little moths, both micro and macro, that I find drawing them gives me my best chance of picking out the pattern as I look through the field guide. Taking a close look at this, I noticed that the two bands and the inconspicuous dot made a pattern like a carnival mask, enabling me to identify it as the Dun-bar, Cosmia trapezina, a common moth from lowland Scotland southwards, wherever there are trees.

Fan-foot

fan-foot

While I sketched these moths Barbara went through the book and came up with a name for this obscure-looking delta-winged little moth. It’s the Fan-foot, Zanclognatha tarsipennalis, a common moth of woods, hedges and gardens.

The the three lines on its wing are;

  1. curved/wavy
  2. like a question mark
  3. almost straight

with a row of fine dashes along the edge of the wing.

Orange Swift

orange swift

Lets have an easier moth; the male of the Orange Swift, Hepialus sylvina, has a bright orange-brown forewing. It’s larvae feed on herbceous plants including dock, dandelion and bracken.

Underwings

small yellow underwinglarge yellow underwingThese two underwings are so regular in the moth trap that I tend to ignore them so that I thought it was about time that I made a quick sketch of them.

Early Thorn

Drawn from my own photograph, which can be easier than peering into a bug box.
Drawn from my own photograph, which can be easier than peering into a bug box.

AT FIRST GLANCE you might think ‘butterfly’ as the Early Thorn, Selenia dentaria, is the only Thorn moth to hold its wings up in butterfly fashion.

You might be thinking that late July doesn’t qualify as ‘Early’ but this is a female of the second generation, which  usually has a larger tawny orange patch on its underwing than the February to May generation.

As the name suggests, she might well be looking for a blackthorn or hawthorn to lay her eggs on, there are plenty in the immediate vicinity, but the larvae will also feed on birch, alder, honeysuckle, sallow or bog-myrtle. They’re common in a wide variety of habitats including gardens, hedges and woods so they should feel at home here.

Moth-trapping

moth trapTHIS IS the moth trap that I’ve been using. It’s built from a design that you can find in the Anglian Lepidopterist Supplies Beginners Guide to Moth Trapping, which is available as a PDF from the Anglian Lepidopterist Supplies website. It slots together so it’s easy to dismantle for storage.

blacklightI bought the black light UV bulb in September, intending to have the trap ready for the moths of early autumn but by Christmas I still hadn’t made a start on it so I’m grateful to my friend David Stubbs of Solway Dory who made this for me in his workshop.

He made one modification to the design which isn’t essential but which I’ve found helpful; the original design is apparently open to the ground so he added a plywood base that rests on batons of 1×1 inch timber glued around the bottom edges of the trap. This is useful on a summer morning when I need to move the trap into the shade to deal with later.

A further improvement that I have in mind: I’m checking in charity shops to see if I can find a suitable heatproof glass container, such as a large cafetière, to cover the bulb so that if there’s a shower during the night it will be protected.

I didn’t want to run the cable out of a window so I had an outdoor electrical socket with a circuit breaker fitted on the back wall of the house, which is a useful thing to have anyway.

Mercury Vapour or UV?

A couple of friends who’ve had experience of moth-trapping recommended that I start with a UV lamp rather than the more powerful mercury vapour. Apart from potentially annoying the neighbours in a back garden location like mine, the mercury vapour brings in so many moths from such a wide area that it can be daunting for the beginner to deal with quantity and variety of species caught.

My friend Tim Freed who does moth surveys sometimes runs three traps simultaneously but he stops up all night going from one to the other logging the catch.

I’m happier to be dealing with much smaller samples of the local moth population but I hope that I’ll be able to keep this up through the seasons and gradually get an impression of the bigger picture.

I’ve got a number of moth books but I think the essentials are Field Guide to the Moths of Great Britain and Ireland by Paul Waring and Martin Townsend and Field Guide to the Micro Moths of Great Britain and Ireland by Phil Sterling and Mark Parsons. Both are illustrated by Richard Lewington.

Moths are so variable that its helpful to check out other books and to Google the species and conjure up dozens of images of it.

Pebble Prominent

pebble prominentAMONGST THE usual suspects – peppered, ‘clay’, footman, heart and dart – rounded up in the moth trap this morning there’s a new and, as a change from all those little brown jobs, a suitably distinctive looking moth. I sketch it several times to take in the appearance of it.

pebble prominentThose swirls at the ends of its forewings remind me of knots in wood. It’s the pebble prominent, Notodonta ziczac, the ‘pebble’ being the light brown area rather than the swirl. It’s a common and widespread moth of mature woodland, hedges and gardens; habitats that Coxley Valley has a plentiful supply of.