Category: Habitats

Broad Cut

There are plans to build 4 million homes on the green belt according to today’s Telegraph.

‘Sandstone causeway north west of Junction 39. Hawthorns and ash tree 8th March 1983.’

There’s a triangle of countryside at Broad Cut Farm, Calder Grove, near Wakefield, that has survived between to the river and the M1 where there’s a now plan to build a hundred of those homes plus 10 manufacturing units..

Google Maps 2024

The causey stone public footpath in my 1983 drawing was originally a colliery tram road, where horse-drawn trucks were taken to Hollin Hall Coal Staith just downstream from Broad Cut Lower Lock. There’s a row of six ‘Old Limekilns’ next to them.


1854 six-inch Ordnance Survey map, made available by the National Library of Scotland

The small building at ‘Th’ Owlet Lathe’ in the top right corner of the map was a dovecote.

I perched on the southbound side of motorway embankment in 1983 to draw it:

Room for 260 pairs of pigeons

A ruinous dovecote stans close to the motorway embankment at Owlet Laithes, just north of junction 39. It is built of handmade bricks on a ssandstone base which acted as a damp-course. The roof is of large Yorkshire stone (andstone) flags held on to a rough-hewn timber framework by wooden pegs.”

Unfortunately this old building disappeared within a few years of me drawing it.

Link

Broadcut Against Development BAD Facebook Group

Lighthouse

Experimenting with Procreate and loosely based on Coquet Island lighthouse but minus the puffins, sandwich and roseate terns this is my take on the first project in the ‘Beginner’s Guide to Digital Painting in Procreate’. My thanks to freelance director and artist Izzy Burton for her step-by-step tutorial.

Curled Dock

Fine strands of dodder twirl around the clusters of flowers at the top of this curled dock’s stem. Dodder is a parasitic climbing plant, a member of the convolvulus family.

Over the Pond

Harlequin ladybird sketches

I like to leave overgrown corners for wildlife but it’s time to cut back the nettles, hogweed, blackberry and sorrel behind the pond before they take over.

Nettle Rust Fungus

Orange stipples of rust fungus, Puccinia urticata, have caused a swelling on a stem of stinging nettle. This fungus has an alternate generation which grows on sedges, which doesn’t result in swellings. This nettle was growing next to a pendulous sedge, Carex pendula, behind the pond.

Harlequin Ladybird

harlequin ladybird

When I started my Wild Yorkshire blog, harlequin ladybirds had yet to be recorded in Britain. The first records were in 2004 but now they’re our commonest ladybird.

Dozens of them spend the winter gathered snuggly in the narrow gap between our back bedroom window and its frame. There’s a great variety in their markings. A harlequin might have red spots on black or black spots on red. They can vary from having zero to as many as 21 spots.

Flea Beetle?

I’m going for flea beetle, possibly Altica lythri, as the identity of the small beetle I found on a sorrel leaf.

flea beetle
According to the ukbeetles.co.uk website: ‘Altica species are easily recognized by the 11-segmented antennae’.

The UK Beetles website describes it as a common beetle of parks, gardens, wasteground, dunes and salt marsh. The food plants of its larvae include willowherbs, loosestrife, enchanter’s nightshade and evening primrose.

Brown Rat

The rat jawbone may be the remains of a fox kill but the foxes haven’t succeeded in eradicating every last brown rat in the area.

We had one of those sudden drenching showers this afternoon with hailstones falling amongst the heavy rain. As I walked across the back lawn later it was squelching underfoot. The run-off noticeably topped up the pond and it will have refilled the water butts attached to the fall pipes from our roof.

The local rat burrows were probably flooded too as we saw a large brown rat run across the patio, only to change its mind and run back again a minute later. It was the first we’ve seen for months, if not years.

Stoneycliffe Wood

Coxley Beck

The wild garlic is at its most deliciously pungent this morning at the top, marshier end of Stoneycliffe Wood Yorkshire Wildlife Trust reserve.

wild garlic
peacock butterfly

Wild garlic, also known as ransons, Allium ursinum.

A tattered peacock butterfly, Nymphalis io, pauses to feed on the flowers.

Roe Deer Slots

roe deer slots

Our neighbours have spotted deer in the valley recently so I was on the look-out for tracks. The size – about 2 inches, 5cm – fits roe deer, the species that is often seen in the area.

Greater Woodrush

greater woodrush
greater woodrush flowers

Greater woodrush (also known as great wood-rush), Luzula syvatica, is an indicator of dry acid soil.

It has clusters of small rush-like flowers.

It has long white hairs along the edges of its shiny leaves, a feature of woodrushes that you don’t see in grasses, sedges or rushes.

woodrush leaves

Bluebell

As I walk through a drift of bluebells, Hyacinthoides non-scripta, at the top end of the valley I get a waft of hyacinth scent, but nowhere near as pungent as the wild garlic.

Wood Speedwell

wood speedwell
wood speedwell

Wood speedwell, Veronica montana, straggles over a mossy log by a woodland track. It’s a plant of moist, neutral soils, often found in ancient woodland.

Raised Beds

raised beds

After 15 or 20 years the raised veg beds are beginning to come apart at the corners and rot through in places.

raised beds as they are now

I like the L-shaped beds as they are but wheeling a barrow down the garden is a bit of an obstacle courses, especially steering past the greenhouse.

plan for new layout of raised beds

So our plan is to widen the central path – and perhaps the side paths to give better access to the beds. It’s a big job but we’re getting Earnshaw’s the local timber and fencing centre in to give us a quote for the doing the work.

Planting veg and covering it with netting or cloches to keep the pigeons off should then be a whole lot easier.

And then I can turn my attention to the rampant chicory that has, as always, taken over my patch of what should be a wild flower meadow.

Maris Bard

potato sketches

My right thumb is doing well – I’d sprained it with a marathon session of snipping back the ivy and hawthorn – but I’m still keen to practice drawing with my non-dominant left hand. These chitted Maris Bard first early seed potatoes are ideal subjects for my wobbly pen.

drawing a potato