Category: Habitats

Banded Demoiselle

A pair mute swans on the canal have reared four cygnets; we’re told that they started with five, but rearing four out of five is pretty good going.

As they sit together on the bank preening, they’re all making elegant swan-neck movements, like the warm-up for a ballet rehearsal; the two principle dancers flanking the corps de ballet.

A male banded demoiselle flies alongside the canal. In contrast to other damselflies, this one is so dark that it reminds us of the chimney sweep moths that we saw flying amongst grasses in the Dales a couple of weeks ago. It’s the first that I can remember seeing in the valley.

It’s a while since we saw a gatekeeper; a male comes to rest on a bramble leaf amongst the grasses by the towpath. The diagonal streaks on the forewings of the male are scent glands. Males have a habit of patrolling a small territory , typically on the edge of a woodland ride.

Ringlets are the butterflies that we’re seeing most frequently at the moment, mainly alongside hedgerows, especially where bramble is in blossom but even more popular with them is a patch of creeping thistle which is currently dotted with purple flower-heads.

Herons, Storks and Spoonbills

A little egret wades through the weedy waters of a pool between the river and canal, occasionally stabbing at some prey in the water a foot or two ahead of it. A pigtail of a plume hangs down behind its head. ‘Little’ is an appropriate description: it looks petite compared with plump moorhen standing nearby at the water’s edge.

A juvenile grey heron touches down by the pool and steadily ambles along the bank towards the egret, which continues its progress towards the heron. I’m expecting the larger heron to see off the egret, but there’s no interaction between them.

Next to the pool is a nesting platform fixed on top of a tall pole. It was erected when a pair of wild white storks attempted to nest here in April 2004: the first nesting attempt in Britain for six hundred years. Storks like to nest near human habitation but it probably didn’t help that hundreds of birdwatchers flocked to the spot and stood on the towpath under the pole. The pair deserted.

But the good news is that it’s just been announced by the RSPB that spoonbills have nested at their Fairburn Ings nature reserve. They haven’t nested in Yorkshire since the 1700s. Unlike the storks, they were able to nest in peace as they wisely chose the cover of a stand of trees in one of the quieter corners of the reserve and the RSPB didn’t go public with the news until the three young had successfully fledged.

Buzzard and Sparrowhawk

As we walk down the Balk into the Calder Valley, a buzzard flies across in front of us, far enough down the slope that we’re getting an eye-level view of it. It’s surprising how different those long, broad wings look when seen from this unfamiliar angle.

Later a female sparrowhawk circles over the marshy field known as the Strands. At first, against the sky with nothing to judge its scale by, I’m wondering if it could be some larger bird of prey, but it soon flies right over our heads, so that we’re able to see the barring on its plumage and get a better idea of its size.

Shrew

8.35 a.m.: A dunnock chases a shrew across the lawn but the shrew ignores it and continues its zig-zag pattern of foraging. It disappears into a small hole for a minute then pops up again in the same place and continues its investigations, pushing its nose amongst the grass stems.

It has lighter-coloured ears; it is whitish beneath and it has a stiffish looking tail which to me looks wider in proportion to its body than I’d expect. It has velvety light brown-grey fur. I’ve shown it too brownish here.

Shrew v. Blackbird

A male blackbird paces along a few inches from it, following its progress, but it seems too diffident to peck at it.

10.40 a.m.; Not so the female blackbird, which pecks at the shrew which is now foraging at the foot of the bird-feeding pole; she pecks at it several times and it scuttles off to take cover in the nearby flower border.

6.30 p.m.; The shrew is still around, busily investigating the turf by the edge of the lawn.

8.30 p.m.; A hedgehog snuffles about beneath the bird feeders.

Update

Sad to report, the following day, following non-stop rain, the bedraggled shrew had expired and was lying on the lawn. Its body measured 5.2 cm, its tail about 4 cm.

The Dog and Conifer

My friend Matthew tells me that this conifer was just three or four feet high when he moved in to his house forty years ago. It has gained its sculptural bonsai character without any help or training from human hands; it was his dog Toby who for many years used to cock his leg up against it. The conifer died back on that side but Matthew let it keep on growing and although the leaves never sprouted back on that side, the new growth above developed normally.

I would have liked to have had more time to draw this Persian cat but, as always, the cat is the one who decides when the sitting is over.

Grey Heron

7.35 a.m.: The Grey Heron is back this morning. Attracting an apex predator is a good sign that there’s plenty of life in the pond but I can’t help worrying about the effects of repeated visits on our frog and newt populations. Perhaps I should cover one end of the pond as a refuge for them. A miniature water-lily would provide some cover.

The heron leaves the pond, preens briefly then flies up to the shed roof. It cranes its neck to choose its next course for breakfast: our neighbours’ carp.

I don’t think that this will go down well, Sean was so proud that his carp had produced a single baby this year, so I open the window and it flies off.

Veg Beds

A sketch to remind me where we’re planting things this year. We always struggle to remember exactly what we planted where when the new season starts.

British summertime started today; the days are getting longer, the soil is warming and, over the past week, the hawthorn hedge has turned bright green as the leaf buds open. We’re getting ahead with the garden; I put the Vivaldi second early potatoes in yesterday and we put the Stuggarter Riesen onion sets in earlier in the week. The alkathene piping and netting are there to stop the blackbirds pulling them up. In a few weeks, once the onions have started to put down roots, we’ll be able to remove the netting.

As we planted the onions two pairs of buzzards circled above us, calling occasionally, in what looked like a minor skirmish over territory.

Strimming and Pruning

This morning we’ve been giving the back garden a spring makeover. While Barbara tackled the flower border (below), I strimmed the meadow area and, using a telescopic-handled pruner, trimmed back the end of a Leylandii cypress hedge that overhangs the fence from next door.

Last week, the long-handled pruner worked well on the rowan at the front but, when trying to get at some of the higher branches of the golden hornet crab apple, I found that I was constantly getting it snagged on the crab’s twiggy shoots, so I climbed a step ladder (which converts into a short ladder) and used long-handled loppers from a better vantage point in the crown of the tree.

March Hare

Lakeside path, pencil and watercolour, from a photograph taken at lunchtime.

10.15 a.m.: It’s almost a year since we walked the circuit of Langsett Reservoir. We always go anticlockwise as the lakeside path through the pines gets us off to a brisk start; we prefer to leave picking our way through the mud at the far corner of the lake until later.

A coal tit flits about, investigating the branches of a lakeside pine.

As we climb the rocky path up to the moor, a robin perches in a shrub on the heathy slope.

On the moor, red grouse are calling: a repeated phrase, with the rhythm of several unsuccessful attempts to start a one-cylinder petrol mower.

A curlew repeats its bubbling call over an expanse of heather. Down by the lake we hear a shrill piping, which we guess is a sandpiper.

On our way out here, near Cawthorne, we briefly spotted a brown hare running alongside a fence. On the moor, a dead hare, lying by the track, looks like a grisly image from a Ted Hughes poem.

2 p.m.: Close to the bank by The Island at Horbury Bridge, a dabchick is diving.

Bright as a Seedsman’s Packet

After a long, dull winter, Sainsbury’s know how to get you as you stroll into the supermarket: I couldn’t resist these bright packs of bee and butterfly meadow mixes. All I’ve got to do now is clear several square metres of ground, plant the bulbs and sow the seed mixes, and wait for the flowers to attract the local pollinators.

There are plants that I would never have selected for our garden, such as gladioli, dahlia and delphinium, so it will be fun to see what works. As the labels suggest, they’ll all be attractive to bees, butterflies, hoverflies and other insects.

Sycamore Seeds

Apart from the squirrel-nibbled cone, which is from Nostell, I picked up these seeds and the lichen and the snail shell on a mossy tree-fringed lawn in Ossett.

Some of the sycamore seeds had begun to sprout while all that was left of the lime seed was the pair of wings that propelled it through the air.

The lichen, Xanthoria parietina, would normally be yellow but it turns greenish when it grows in shade. The insides of the spore-producing cups – the apothecia – have kept their colour.

Spring Garden

We’re pleased with the  way the flower bed by the rowan in the front garden has come on since we planted it out in spring last year.

The spiky ornamental grasses, the shrubby purple hebe and the tete-a-tete daffodils have all bulked up but the stars of the show are the primulas. They’ve been no more than a bedraggled rosette of leaves all winter but over the past couple of weeks we’ve seen more and more flowers appearing.