Richard Bell's nature sketchbook since 1998
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.
George Street, Wakefield: Wall-rue and Maidenhair Spleenwort on a brick wall which probably dates back to the days of the cattle market, and a mossy pool on the roots of an old flowering cherry. The ‘well kept secret’ herbs and spices are served at Kentucky Fried Chicken, Westgate Retail Park.
It rained for much of today but by 4 o’clock the towering cumulus clouds had passed over and it was bright enough to encourage me to put on my 1970s black wellies and cross a soggy, mossy lawn to trim back the ivy by the shed.
The birds are already singing and showing interest in denser sections of the hawthorn hedge. Luckily I pruned the rowan, crab apple and the holly hedge at the end of the garden a month ago.
Barbara spotted some frog activity last week and today I noticed two clumps of spawn in the usual, sunniest, corner of the pond.
I’ve often seen great-crested grebes go through their head-shaking, ritualised preening display, but at last this morning at RSPB St Aidan’s, we got to see the presentation of beakfuls of water-weed and the penguin dance where the male and female rise from the water, breast to breast, paddling furiously and swaying heads. They appeared to drop the weed as they started this routine. They then returned to head-bobbing display.
We’ve yet to see the ‘ghostly penguin’ and the ‘cat display’ which apparently start off the whole routine.
Next door’s staghorn sumac might be falling to pieces as it sheds its reddening compound leaves but the birds appreciate it. A party of blue tits and great tits forage every niche on its bark and branches, while a small warbler, tagging along with them, checks out the lower branches. Starlings fly in to eat the small berries, botanically drupes.
In local parkland, this wasps’ nest at the foot of an oak has been raided, presumably by a badger. You can see the remaining wasps clustered on the remnants of the nest.
We’re used to seeing the grey squirrels burying acorns and collecting sweet chestnuts but this autumn they’re showing a lot of interest in conkers. Just after I’d photographed this nibbled shell, a squirrel bounded across the path with a large conker in its mouth and headed into the cover of a holly.
It’s so long since I drew in London so I took the opportunity as we waited for a train to draw St Pancras from a bench in the welcome shade of the Francis Crick Institute.
On the news stands now, my latest Dalesman nature diary.
‘Did you manage to get any gardening done after drawing this and photographing the robin?’, a friend on Instagram asks me. Well yes, Jacqui, you’re going to be amazed at the transformation!
These Olympus Tough macro shots, taken while weeding the potato bed, include a holly blue butterfly.
I’ve been working my way over the veg beds weeding, mainly with a small hand fork but occasionally I need a pair of secateurs so I’ve gone for my garden tool belt. Also in there, my Olympus Tough camera. I had been keeping it in the leg pocket of my works trousers but if the resident robin hops down in front of me, or a holly blue butterfly lands on the nearby marjoram, it takes too long to unzip the pocket and retrieve the camera.
From my sketchbook (and diary) from 50 years ago today, Thursday, 23 August, 1973:
Mother and I visited Grandma (in excellent form). Such a fine afternoon that I took a walk out to the Gravel Pits that I haven’t visited since I was so high (well a little higher than that perhaps).
A rich hedgerow was suffering from the dust of gravel lorries.
81 coots (mainly & a few tufted)
15 lapwing
Common Persicaria, Pollygonum persicaria, is typical of disturbed and damp ground such as there was about the gravel workings. The leaves often have a dark blotch. Also known as Redshank.
One explanation of the dark patch is that the Devil once pinched the leaves and made them useless as they lack the fiery flavour of water-pepper.
Shetlanders used to extract a yellow dye from it.
Yes, this was a potato – the gravel pit seems to have been partly filled by rubbish.
Mother and I stopped off in Barnsley on our way to Grandma’s. According to The Naturalist’s Handbook there is a museum there.
“This building was the Harvey Institute, many years ago, and there was a museum here, which was in what is now the Junior Library.”
