Category: Habitats

Heald Wood

A morning walk on the western shore of Lake Windermere, from Ferry House to Wray castle.

Windermere looking north to Wansfell. The tree provided a frame and a lead-in to the panorama.
The fallen tree has lifted fragments of the flaggy bedrock.
In colour the contrast was the wrong way round from the point of view of atmospheric perspective with a high key background and a monochrome foreground. Converting the image to grayscale reminds me of the high contrast prints that I aimed to make in the darkroom when I developed my own film. Photoshop is streets ahead of anything that I ever managed to do. Although I notice that I’ve over-sharpened the image; pixels don’t behave quite like film grain.
After we’d photographed the tree we turned to see this bullock standing precariously on an adjacent rock.
The bullock soon decided that the shoot was over. I think that he could be a crossbreed with some Jersey in him
I couldn’t resist attempting this rock crevice with saplings but I knew the strong contrast of sun to shadow would be too much for the dynamic range of my camera.
I had to stand in the stream to photograph the sunlit ripples without casting my shadow across the frame.
Warmth and wet had brought out fungi in Heald Wood including these growing on a tree.
A perfect clump of fungi further up the same tree as the previous photograph.

Focus on Fungi

birchbrack2

IT’S ABOUT a month since we last walked through the woods at Newmillerdam and it now feels as if autumn has arrived. Bracket fungi are starting to sprout from the fallen silver birches with shapes that remind me of the cream-filled meringues of my childhood.

A Finger on the Button

Like most digital cameras my new FujiFilm S6800 focuses on whatever is in the centre of the screen when you half press the shutter button. But what if you’d prefer to have your subject off centre?

As I should have worked out long ago when using previous cameras, if you keep button half-pressed you can then move the camera to get the composition you’re after but the focus of the lens will stay as it is, set to your subject.

birchbrack1

I think that having the main subject at the junction of thirds, rather than slap in the middle of gives a better composition. Central can sometimes be too obvious, like a passport photograph.

Throwing the background out of focus also gives emphasis to the subject.

stumpfungi2

As a record shot to help with identification it wouldn’t matter if the subject was central or the background in focus but I feel that by moving the subject to one side you introduce a little bit of narrative, a bit of expectation perhaps, and keeping the background out of focus goes a little way to building up that feeling of mystery that you get when you see fungi emerging in autumn woods.
stumpfungi

Second Nature

stumpfungi3

Inspired by the new camera, I’ve been reading Doug Sahlin’s Digital Landscape & Nature Photography for Dummies. I’m making an effort to get thoroughly familiar with its controls, so that they become second nature to me. With previous digital cameras I’ve had such good results with the auto or programmed settings that I’ve never got around to trying manual settings such as aperture priority and shutter priority.

rowan berriesIt’s the photographic equivalent of making the move from marker pens to watercolour in sketchbook work. There’s nothing wrong with in-your-face boldness in photography or in illustration but when it comes to trying to express a more enigmatic mood I think you need to develop a more subtle technique.

Wood Chip Paths

WE WERE busy over the bank holiday weekend. Going through the process of shovelling and sieving again and again I thought that it would be good practice for me to make a little step by step YouTube video.

It took about ten goes for me to record a commentary that sounded reasonably coherent!

Batley Baths

Batley baths

THIS SKETCHBOOK drawing was made from the life drawing studio in Batley School of Art, probably in the winter months of 1968, looking down on Batley swimming baths. I came across it this morning when I was looking through some of my teenage holiday journals in the attic.

The box on the windowsill is one that we were set to design and make in the college workshop. In it I can identify a pen knife, pen holder, compass and ruling pen, the tools of my trade as a foundation student, and beside it are bottles of blue, yellow and green Indian ink.

The yellow box on the left contains children’s wax crayons; ‘Noddy’ crayons, branded with the name of the Enid Blyton character.

Batley bathsRubbing these crayons on my sketchbook page laid the foundations for a kind of poor man’s scraperboard which I then, with difficulty, painted over with India ink which I could then scrape through to produce highlights such as mouldings, mortar and leaded windows.

This is a long and laborious way to produce a drawing but it’s evident that I enjoyed building up the textures.

It’s successful in bringing back to me the drabness of Batley at that time when smokeless zones were a recent innovation. I love the dour stonework and the glowering skylights which you can’t imagine would ever allow fresh air and sunlight filter down into the changing rooms below.

I never swam in these baths.

 

Waterbirds and Fungi

greylag goose

I LOVE the 30x zoom on my new camera. There’s an element of luck in what the autofocus chooses to latch on to but you can take several shots and hopefully one will catch something. The 4600 pixel wide images give plenty of scope for cropping in to find some suitable composition, like this Greylag keeping a wary eye on me.

canadas

tufted duckblack-headed gull divingI knew the Canada Geese would head for the water if I got too near. Having the zoom on maximum flattened the perspective and emphasised the pattern of black and white, like musical notes on a stave.

If I can get such close ups as this in a few minutes just ambling along the lakeside path imagine what I might be able to do if I spent a morning in one of the hides at a wetland reserve.

black-headed gull diving

crow in willowIt would be interesting to try a catch bird behaviour on film – like this juvenile Black-headed Gull diving into the lake, possibly to catch fish or perhaps even small freshwater mussels. A series of images might provide some clues. The camera has a continuous mode for capturing movement.

Water birds are good subjects to experiment with as they’re large and usually not hidden by foliage so when we saw a Carrion Crow in a waterside willow I tried photographing it.

Grey Heron

grey herongrey heronI was struggling to keep the camera steady when I tried to photograph the Grey Heron preening itself in a willow at the other side of the lake. The image is rather blocky but it would be useful if I was gathering reference for an illustration.

It’s good to see a heron engaged in some kind of activity rather than standing at rest.

Fungi

agaricagaricNot surprisingly after the warm humid weather that we’ve been having there were one or two fungi about. The toadstool with the scaly cap is a relative of the Fly Agaric while the purplish, smooth capped  and much eaten into toadstool (below, right) looks to me like one of the Russulas.

russulaBut today I’m content to get to know my camera. I’m looking forward to using it to get to know the names of a few more fungi in the autumn.

Brown Mottlegill

Drawing of the fungiSummer warmth and a few heavy showers have triggered the growth of some small fungi on our dewy back lawn this morning. They’re going to get trimmed off when I get around to cutting the lawn so I pick them to draw and to take some close-ups using my USB microscope.

The cap which is about a centimetre across is smooth with no trace of ridges. It has dark brown gills, which I’d describe as distant as opposed to close or crowded.

gills

In this photograph the gills are emarginate, meaning that there is a notch where they attach to the stem. But the notch isn’t as clear in this cross section of the cap;cap in cross-section

The circular stem is hollow and there’s no swelling at its base.

Spore Prints

Brown Mottlegill spore printThe pattern of growth, as far as I can judge by this little group, is trooping. I couldn’t see any trace of a fairy ring starting to form.

I’m taking spore prints which might help narrow down what kind of fungus it is.

spores of brown mottlegill

My thanks to Steve Clements for this suggestion;

Most likely a Mottlegill (Panaeolus or Panaeolina) – the commonest one on mown grass round my part of Sheffield is Brown Hay Cap – Panaeolina foenesecii – which is supposed to be slightly hallucinogenic. The spores are blackish, and warted (under the microscope). The gills look mottled under a hand lens.

The Collins Guide calls this species Brown Mottlegill and adds that the ‘dark brown-black’ spores are ‘ellip to lemon-shaped’ which is how they look in 200x photograph that I took with my microscope.

Garden Snail

garden snail, Helix aspersaThe Garden Snail, Helix aspersa, has a thin, lightweight shell but that still looks cumbersome as it explores a fern-filled crevice in an old wall (see previous posts). As I drew it from a photograph that I’d taken this morning I noticed traces of damage to the shell with what appears to be a healed break in the rim and hairline fracture on the ‘back’ of its shell.

I imagine it being surprised, perhaps by a bird, retracting into its shell then falling from the wall onto the pavement below.

garden snail, Helix aspersa

A second snail clung precariously to the base of the stems of Common Ragwort, growing from a crevice near the top of the six foot high wall amongst the fronds of Rusty-back Fern and Wall Rue.

Wall Rue

wall rue, Asplenium ruta-muraria

Wall Rue, British Ferns, 1861
Wall Rue, British Ferns, 1861

Wall Rue, Asplenium ruta-muraria grows alongside the Rusty-back Fern in the crevices of an old wall in Ossett. It is a common fern of walls and limestone crevices.

Leathery leaves and long wiry roots are useful adaptations for conserving water.

Like the Rusty-back it is a member of the Spleenwort family, used as a herbal remedy for diseases of the spleen and also in the treatment of rickets.

Rusty-back Fern

rusty-back fern, Ceterach officinarumrusty-back fern fronds, Ceterach officinarumThe Rusty-back fern, Ceterach officinarum, has rusty scales on the backs of its leaves. These cover the spore-producing sori and probably help prevent the fern from drying out. During dry spells the fronds roll in at the edges.

Growing to just few inches, this fern is found in dry crevices in limestone and in old mortared walls. A small colony grows on a north-east facing sandstone wall on Station Road, Ossett.

It is best grown in a cold frame, potted rather high, among loam mixed with a large proportion of brick-rubbish, and not over-watered.

Thomas More, British Ferns, 1861

Rusty-back or Scale fern, drawn by W.W. Coleman, British Ferns, 1861.
Rusty-back or Scale fern, drawn by W.W. Coleman, British Ferns, 1861.

Rusty-back fern is a member of the spleenwort family and was used to treat diseases of the spleen. Legend has it that Cretan sheep with spleen disorders would greedily devour its rootstock.

It’s scientific name Ceterach is said to derive from the Arabic  ‘Cheterak’ the name that Eastern physicians used for this plant.

Yellow-tail Moth

yellow-tail moth, Euproctis similis
Featherlike antennae help the male track down the larger female.

When disturbed the Yellow-tail Moth, Euproctis similis,  sticks the end of its abdomen up between its wings. Both male and female have the yellow tip although it is larger in the female.

yellow-tail sketches

Some female moths spread pheromones by raising their tails and the males use their feathery antennae to home in on them.

So why does this male raise his ‘tail’ when disturbed? Is it a way to surprise a predator?

Male yellow-tail moth, Euproctis similis
The male has dark spots on his wings.

It’s the first time that this species has turned up in the moth trap.

The male seen from below.
The male seen from below.

Yellow-tail moth caterpillars have been found on Japanese Knotweed, an invasive garden escape which very few native insects feed on, but they’re more likely to feed on sallow, blackthorn and hawthorn.