Category: Habitats

Coot

coot
Coot by the war memorial at Newmillerdam this morning.

At Newmillerdam most of the black-headed gulls now have their chocolate brown masks but they all seem remarkably laid back this morning with no noisy disputes. Soon they’ll be gathering at their nesting colony at St Aidan’s.

Another reason for it seeming so peaceful is that there are no Canada geese around. Last week I saw a flock of more than a hundred by the canal opposite the Strands and a similar flock on the Wyke.

By the outlet at Newmillerdam a lone coot was diving for freshwater mussels. In the few minutes as we passed by it apparently finished feeding on one and then dived for another. The mussel was the size of a small grape.

Squirrel Baffle

squirrel sketches

Rainy, grey skies, a wind from the north, so it doesn’t feel like the first day of meteorological spring.

8.30 a.m.: A grey squirrel bounds across the lawn.

It soon realises that it can’t climb around the baffle on the bird feeder post.

It climbs into the hawthorn hedge and you can see it weighing up the possibilities. No, not worth it. It scampers off across next door’s lawn.

The Crown

The Crown Hotel sketch

As a complete change from the graphic symmetry of the library logo on our day off in Harrogate today I’ve gone for a freeform drawing exercise, suggested by Ian Burke of the Staithes Gallery on a recent episode of Robson Green’s Weekend Escapes.

In contrast to all the planning that went into constructing the library facade for the logo, the aim here is to keep your pen on the paper and just keep drawing.

Crown Hotel
The subdued colour and rippled detail remind me of early Lucian Freud paintings (my favourite period in his work 🙂 ).

I know what you’re thinking, even for a freeform drawing isn’t that too wobbly? But I was drawing through the windows of the Palm Court Cafe above Farrar’s so I was looking through the rippled glass leaded lights of the cafe’s windows.

Links

Staithes Gallery

The Crown Hotel, Harrogate

Palm Court Cafe, Harrogate

The View from the Boathouse

Boathouse cafe

Just a taste (in this case a Bakewell and a latte) of the research that I’ve put into my article The bear, the bulldog and the boathouse, celebrating the 200th anniversary of the Boathouse at Newmillerdam, in the March issue of The Dalesman, out today.

Boathouse cafe

That chair is on the spot where sharp-shooting French bulldog enthusiast Lady Kathleen Pilkington (see article) sat 121 years ago in 1902.

My thanks to Experience Wakefield, www.experiencewakefield.co.uk for their support when I was researching this article.

Links

Dalesman website

The Yorkshire Dalesman

The Boathouse, Newmillerdam

Experience Wakefield

Newmillerdam Community and Conservation Association

Spring Flowers

Barbara’s brother John has seen the outside world just once in the last month on a brief wheelchair tour of the Hospice grounds so he asked us to photograph some of the spring flowers that are currently coming up in our garden.

The rest of the garden is ready for a bit of a spring clean but the crocus, daffodils, irises, winter aconite and pulmonaria give a welcome burst of colours.

Secondary Feather

Feather that I picked up by the track at St Aidan’s yesterday and I think that it’s a secondary from the right wing of a goose. A large flock of pink-footed geese went over, touching down at the Astley Lake end of the reserve.

Hellebore

hellebore

Drifts of snowdrops, winter aconites and a variety of hellebores at Brodsworth Hall this morning.

February Flowers

flower drawings

There are a few bright spots of colour beginning to appear on the raised bed behind the pond.

drawing flowers with an ipad

With the afternoon light starting to fade I went for the easier option of photographing them and drawing from my iPad.

This is my first drawing with my refreshed Winsor and Newton watercolour box which I’ve filled with botanical subjects in mind and so far it seems to be working.

Ficus

Ficus

My thanks to Beth and Ian who ran the Art Tour: Drawing from Observation at the Apple Store in Leeds on Thursday morning. We headed for Trinity Kitchen and settled down to draw using Procreate on the latest version of the iPad Pro. This was the central tree, I think that it’s a weeping fig, Ficus benjamina, with a ‘trunk’ of intertwined stems.