Category: Habitats

Holmfield Beech

Holmfield beech

In Holmfield Park, adjoining Thornes and Clarence Parks in Wakefield, this old beech has so far escaped damage in storms. So many beeches in the area are getting to that 150 to 200 year old stage when they start shedding boughs. Let’s hope that this one still has decades of life left in it.

sandstone wall
rose

On Saturday we met up with family at the Holmfield Arms, in Holmfield House, a Victorian mansion which was once gifted to the city and housed the local museum.

The cross-bedded sandstone is the wall of what is now an orangery style room in the Brewers’ Fair restaurant. It overlooks a terrace surrounded by shrubs and trees, including a lime (lower left on my sketch above). Varieties of lime that grew in a columnar shape were popular with the Victorians.

I drew more Victorian trees in Horbury. Some of these are getting to the end of their natural lives and have shed branches, or on the odd occasion been blown down in storms.

Jenkin Road, Horbury

Remember Where You Are

bird calls cartoon

For my brother-in-law John’s big birthday plus one, a cartoon of our regular walk around Newmillerdam, which would be a quiet place if it wasn’t for all that birdsong and – on her My Yorkshire show last week – Jane McDonald singing Jessie Ware’s Remember Where You Are on the slope behind the Boathouse.

Nats AGM sketches

The Wakefield Naturalists’ Society had their first AGM since the pandemic on Monday but it was a case of blink and you’ll miss it, as the main event of the evening was Ron Marshall talking about Ardnamurchan, the Outer Hebrides and the Shetlands.

sketches at John's

These sketches were drawn with a Lamy nexx with a B – bold – nib. I’m getting towards the end of my bottle of De Atramentis, an ink which soon dries, allowing me to add watercolour.

Fentiman’s Gently Sparkling Elderflower

A Parliament of Crows

We almost gave up on this morning’s walk at RSPB Fairburn Ings as the rain seemed to be setting in but as it was so quiet there we were able to get good views of two roe deer, grazing just 50 yards from the Roy Taylor trail. This was the best of my iPhone shots, on the others they were heads down, white rumps towards us.

The reeds festooning the trees are an indication of flood levels but this morning most of the paths had dried out.

Confession time: the Parliament of Crows is a collage of four photographs. There were more crows than shown here but I couldn’t get them all to pose together for their group photograph.

Olive Tree

olive

Drawing this 125 year old olive tree reminded me of our holidays in Greece and Majorca and made me think that I’d like to go drawing there again.

olive

This one grows in a large planter in Crimple Garden Centre’s Bar + Kitchen overlooking the Crimple Valley just outside Harrogate.

Window drawn at Blacker Hall Farm Shop cafe the other day.

Crow and Newt

In the formal pond at Harlow Carr a carrion crow picks a newt from amongst water plants.

Hellebores on the Winter Walk and in the woodland.

Posturing Pigeon

wood pigeon sketches

A wood pigeon perches on the shed roof then swoops down to the lawn to chase off another pigeon that has just landed, chasing it around beneath the bird feeders with a menacing waddle punctuated with short jumps. The second pigeon soon realises that it isn’t going to get any peace and flies off.

I like drawing pigeons and that’s just as well because when they fly up from the wood the flock fills our field of vision as they wheel around, well over a hundred of them, probably 200. But we are going to have to net any seedling we plant in the veg beds.

Cascade Bridge

cascade

It was good to see water flowing on the Cascade between the Middle and Lower Lakes at Nostell this morning. We haven’t seen it in action for years. The sluice was restored but because of leakage issues the water has been diverted through a sluice and through a pipe for the last five or six years.

Stable block at Nostell, drawn as we waited in the queue for coffee.