Richard Bell's nature sketchbook since 1998
I always slip my Olympus Tough camera into my pocket when I set out to work in the garden and, even before I’d started repotting plants in the greenhouse, I noticed these zig-zag patterns on the seed tray I was using.
They look like the marks left by a snail scraping away a film of algae from the surface of the tray.
Probably one of the garden snails that I’ve evicted from the greenhouse on several occasions.
It’s been a good year for the pink-footed geese at St Aidan’s. Two families swam by along one of the drains with a total of 16 goslings between the two pairs.
Not so visible were swallows, which I expected to be zipping around above us during our walk, but the warden explained that they do seem to come and go and that the sand martins were still busy at their colony in the sand martin wall.
The kestrels have yet to hatch any young and it’s possible that a grey squirrel seen on the jib of the huge dragline excavator where they nest has done a bit of nest-robbing. There’s still time for them to start again.
It’s a perfect midsummer’s day for our walk from Wetherby alongside the River Wharfe, past Flint Mill Grange to Thorp Arch but we appreciate the shade of the Sustrans route along the old railway on the return leg.
Each bird has its favoured habitat. The song post for the yellowhammer in open farmland is on a phone line in contrast the blackcap makes a call that sounds like pebbles clacking together from the foliage of a tree in a deep, shady railway cutting. The warbler (willow?) prospects elegantly in the shrubs of a burgeoning hedgerow while the red kite swoops through parkland as we reach Thorp Arch.
No Mow May is over but these dog daisies in the top corner of our back lawn have escaped the mower.
11.15 a.m., 70℉, 21℃, storm cloud looking threatening to the west, but we escape the worst of it: The triple flower-heads of Yellow Flag Iris look complicated, but they work perfectly when a bumble bee lands on them. I assume that it would take one of the larger bees to trigger the mechanism and enter the flower, but a smaller bumble bee manages just as easily.
The coots’ nest near the war memorial has been neatly built up since last week and there are at least three chicks.
Back home, I draw some of the visitors to the bird feeders. In additions to the greenfinch, blackbird, starling, blue tit, robin, wood pigeon and house sparrow that I’ve sketched here, we had a male great spotted woodpecker coming to the feeders and a grey squirrel with a very undernourished tail.
My thanks to Connie, Sofia and Annabelle for doing a bit of pond dipping in our back garden yesterday. They reported a single large water beetle and the odd damselfly larva but they made no mention of tadpoles or young frogs. That might be because of the numbers of newts in the pond.
Smooth Newts 22, of which only 5 were female, so in this sample less than a quarter of the population is female. On the occasions that I’ve seen a newt caught by a blackbird I’ve often spotted the bright orange belly of the male.
Of course I’ll draw them when they’re in flower, but I like foxgloves at this stage, with the cluster of flower buds beginning to unfurl.
My company as I draw this on my wild flower patch at the end of the garden includes a female sparrow picking over the wood chip path, a blackbird singing behind me over the hedge, a dunnock giving its hurried trill and a jumping spider checking out my legs. I’m wearing shorts so I can track its progress over my hairy legs without looking up from my drawing, so I miss its daring leap from knee to knee.
The rosette of leaves at the foot of the plant also makes an interesting subject. But I will draw those flowers as they appear over the next few weeks.
With ‘No Mow May’ drawing to a close, it’s time to count the flowers that have sprung up on our front lawn. I throw a small chunk of wood over my shoulder to randomly select my square metre sample.
Results: 8 daisies, 2 common mouse-ear and 75 germander speedwell flowers.
Plantlife calculate that, taking this as an average for my 14.4 square metre lawn, the flowers are producing 1.7 milligrams of nectar per square metre, enough to support 2 bees across the entire lawn.
Let’s hope that I can improve on that with next year’s ‘Every Flower Counts’ survey.
My peppers are more than ready for potting on but I wanted to draw this Sun Spurge, Euphorbia helioscopia, now going to seed, before I do that. I took the soil for the peppers from the greenhouse, so it’s not surprising that this sprouted. Spurge ‘bribes’ ants to disperse its seed by tempting them with oil-rich attachments – elaiosomes – which the ants or their larvae eat before discarding the seed.
Like all euphorbias, as a deterrent to herbivores, the Sun Spurge has milky, latex sap that can cause irritation.
Newmillerdam Lake, War Memorial, Monday, 24 May, 2021, 10.50 a.m., 63℉, 7℃, 80% cloud: A coot swims to the shore and immediately sees off two snoozing mallard drakes. It preens and pods about a bit then goes back to the lake.
Two pairs of pink-footed goose come ashore, each with a single gosling.
Two weeks ago I drew the coot on the nest by the outlet sitting on eggs, last week there were about eight chicks and this week the nest is empty, with no sign of any addled eggs left behind. Nearer the war memorial there’s a coot still sitting on its nest, no sign of chicks peeping out as we passed.
