Category: Habitats

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

Secret Walls

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.

First Day of Spring

cumulus

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.

frogspawn

Barbara spotted some frog activity last week and today I noticed two clumps of spawn in the usual, sunniest, corner of the pond.

Penguin Dance

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.

Staghorn Sumac

The most conspicuous butterflies at the moment: fresh-looking red admirals.

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.

wasp nest

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.

conker
squirrel

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.

St Pancras

St Pancras

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.