Richard Bell's nature sketchbook since 1998
Back down a rather overgrown bark chip path to my ‘Rough Patch’ in our back garden. The birds have finished nesting and it’s time to cut back.
This is my first attempt at composing a backing track in Garageband and also my first experiment with a dji Osmo gimbal mount for my iPhone.
Whitebeam growing by the canal at the Strands, downstream from Horbury Bridge.
A whitebeam, berries starting to ripen, in a car park in Normanton.
Combining a shopping trip with a brief visit to Harlow Carr and a walk through the Pinewoods and Valley Gardens into Harrogate.
They’re restoring the old water mill at Newmillerdam, re-using the flagstone roof tiles, a job that involves a lot of work with power tools so I’ve made my way along the lakeside to draw this multi-stemmed alder.
This Stewartia, possibly Japanese Stewartia, should flower about this time of year, but we didn’t spot any flowers open
It looks as if it’s going to be our best year yet for our cordon apples, especially the Howgate Wonder which I recently had to tie in because of the weight of fruit and leafy growth. Summer pruning seems to suit them best, encouraging fruiting spurs to form.
In May 1834 Charles Waterton had himself lowered by rope down the cliffs at Flamborough by two local egg-gatherers:
‘The sea was roaring at the base of this stupendous wall of rocks; thousands and tens of thousands of wild fowl were in an instant on the wing: the kittiwakes and jackdaws rose in circling flight; while most of the guillemots, razorbills, and puffins, left the ledges of the rocks, in a straight and downward line, with a peculiarly quick motion of the pinions, till they plunged into the ocean.’
Charles Waterton, ‘Essays on Natural History’ (1835-1857)
My version of this scene was based on this Victorian engraving, artist uncredited except for the initials in the bottom left hand corner, which could be those of the engraver.
The weight of apples and leafy summer growth proved too much of our Howgate Wonder double cordon and one of the main branches collapsed forwards on the patio. It wasn’t broken so we tied it back in, pruned back the majority of this year’s leafy growth and picked up the eight or so apples that fell off during the process. They’re not ripe but we can stew them with a bit of brown sugar and water.
Kittiwakes nesting and a juvenile herring gull at Bridlington Harbour; a quiet corner of Bondville Model Village; harebells at North Landing, Flamborough and ring-tailed lemur and Humboldt’s penguins at Sewerby Hall.