Category: Habitats

The Woman over the Window

caryatidThere are carved heads on keystones above the entrance and the windows of this Venetian palace style branch of the Wakefield and Barnsley Union Bank (now occupied by Barclays) built in Ossett in 1870. The Santa Claus lookalike above the door seems to be a portrait, perhaps of the first manager, but this woman over the window has classical proportions and probably represents a mythological figure.

The man in a winged helmet over another window is probably Mercury but it would be nice to think that he was Osla the Viking, who, according to one interpretation of the town’s name, settled at ‘Osla’s seat’ or ‘Osla’s ridge camp’ a century and a half before the Battle of Hastings.

Green Spire

pigeonlimeThe lime trees in the gardens of Victorian villas in Horbury are characteristically tall and columnar in shape. When they need to be replaced the tree officer for the local council requests varieties which have a similar shape; Tilia cordata ‘Rancho’ or Tilia cordata ‘Green Spire’.

heatherOrnamental heathers are now bringing some early spring colour into gardens.

Lichens on Poplar

poplar bark

Bracket fungus on willow
Bracket fungus on willow

These lichens, yellow Xanthoria parietina and pale  Parmelia saxatalis, were growing on a poplar at Alverthorpe Meadows which we walked around with friends Roger and Sue recently.

In a nearby tree was a mystery bird. It was the size of a song thrush but had the streaky spots of a mistle thrush. On a dull day looking up at it silhouetted amongst the bare branches I couldn’t get much further with an ID but luckily normal redwingRoger had brought his bridge camera with a powerful telephoto and when we viewed the bird on screen when we got back we could see clearly that it was a redwing. It’s unusual to see just the one redwing on its own, so I think that threw us.

white blossommagpie's nest

The pied plumage of the magpie in blends well with the bare branches.
The pied plumage of the magpie in blends well with the bare branches.

But the trees won’t be bare for much longer. It’s good to see the blossom (not sure what species this is) appearing. But whatever time of year there’s always something to see, even if it’s just the bracket fungus on a willow or the magpies busy repairing their nests.

Bracket fungus
Blushing bracket fungus Daedaleopsis confragosa on willow

We met one of the Wakefield countryside rangers who told us she was planning the annual toad-count. She realises toadthat it’s important to choose the right night for it – mild and damp – or you won’t get a good impression of the numbers.

Auntie Bar

Barbara and Jack at my christening
Barbara and Jack at my christening

ebony warriorAs an 9 or 10 year old I pinned a map of Africa on my bedroom wall, surrounded by a collection of the 3D models of African animal heads that they printed on the back of Corn Flake packets. I hoped that some day I’d be able to fly out to Tanganyika to visit my godparents, Barbara and Jack Wilkinson, though sadly that never happened. I’ve still got the five inch tall ebony warrior that they sent me. He still sports his feathery plume, hide shield and Masai regalia but he lost his spear long ago.

Jack taught biology at the agricultural college at Arusha, close to the Kenyan border. It’s a beautiful setting with Mount Meru and Kilimanjaro looming in the background. Returning to Britain when Tanzania won its independence, they settled in Leek, Staffordshire, where Jack continued to teach biology. He died of cancer about thirty years ago.
Barbara was doing fine when we visited her last summer before my mum’s fall but she too had a fall at new year. She died on the morning of my mum’s funeral. Like my mum she was in her 97th year.
We made our way, via the Peak District, to her funeral today. I’ll miss our occasional visits to Leek to meet up with her and go out for a lunch, which for me was always Staffordshire oatcakes (a kind of pancake), at the White Hart Tearooms.

Frogfest

frogfestI looked out the other day and there were at least twelve frogs in the pond. Today I counted nine clumps of frogspawn. Usually the spawn is laid at the shallow, sunnier end of the pond. This year it’s all at the overgrown, deeper end, partially shaded by the shed.

Since I wrote this, my neighbour frogspawnJack across the road has offered me a bucket of spawn which he always clears from his tiny pond. I don’t really need any more but I’d rather take it because otherwise he’d put it in the stream, which is fast flowing so it would just get flushed away into the river. I’m trying to work out if I can fit in a mini-pond or two into the odd corner of my garden as I know ponds have been filled in in adjacent gardens and the frog population will soon start struggling.

cafitiereHedgehog Dropping

hedgehog droppingOn a mossy patch of back lawn near the pond there’s a single hedgehog dropping and, a foot or so from that, a clayey fox scat with the typical pointed end.

School Chair

school chair This school chair is less than three feet high. I like the way the back legs taper together towards the floor, giving a wider back at the top, while the front legs splay outwards to give stability. The change from the square section at the back to round at the front gives it an organic charm, as if it had grown rather than being popped out of a mould in a factory, like a modular 21st century stacking school chair.school chair

Uniglaze

uniglazeI enjoy drawing bits of buildings, often the side that the architect didn’t intend us to see. This window showroom at the top end of Cluntergate, Horbury, was drawn with a fine Faber-Castell Pitt artist pen as we sat in the Caffe Capri opposite.

The watercolour was added later using a photograph I took on my Olympus Tough as reference.

Janet’s Foss

I tried out my new Leki monopod/walking pole on Sunday, attaching my Olympus Tough to it to film Janet’s Foss, near Malham. Even with this small camera mounted on it, the pole was useful when stepping over damp limestone boulders to get nearer to the waterfall.

Although a lot steadier than handheld, I found that it swayed slightly as I clung to it, so I used the camera shake adjustment in iMovie to reduce this effect.

The image quality of the Tough isn’t as sparkly as my regular camera (plus I still had it on the macro setting, which can’t have helped) so I tried using iMovie’s ‘romantic’ filter to soften the pixelated effect. This filter adds a soft vignette to the frame. The gradual zoom-in was also added in iMovie, using the ‘Ken Burns’ effect in the cropping tools section.

Leaf Skeletons

poplar leaffirst celandineThe poplar leaves by the lock on the Leeds Liverpool canal at Gargrave have all but turned to leaf mould, leaving fragmentary leaf skeletons.

On a south-facing bank by the road I see my first celandines of the year bursting into flower, pushing up amongst their dark green heart-shaped leaves and the dried stems of last year’s growth.

wall

garden snailsAt the foot of this gritstone wall I pick up a couple of garden snail shells to draw. Inside a third shell I find another species of snail sheltering. Compared to the garden snail this one has a more flattened spiral, rather like an ammonite.

snail shell

Poplar twig

Town End Farm Shop

View from Town End Farm shop cafeTown End Farm Shop, Airton, Malhamdale, 12 noon; Looking north north-west, over pastures, drystone walls, an ash wood and a field barn.

A flock of fifty to a hundred gulls sits on a low-lying pasture by a bend in the headwaters of the River Aire. A few crows head off up the valley with more purpose than the drifting gulls.

Link; Town End Farm Shop