Category: Trees

Blackbirds in Stereo

blackthorn12.15 p.m., 60°F, 15°C: As I draw the blackthorn from the end of our garden, rival blackbirds are singing about a hundred yards apart at the edge of the wood. It’s a great stereophonic accompaniment for me as I work and it occurs to me that the less mellow, hurried song of the dunnock sounds like a tape being rapidly rewound.

I’m also hearing great tit, wood pigeon and a crow cawing.

small tortoiseshellAt the edge of the meadow, a small tortoiseshell flies past, low over the grasses, bramble and the ferny rosettes of emerging cow parsley.

magpieCarrion CrowLater I see a magpie fly down to our garden hedge, alarming the resident male blackbird. The magpie disappears into the hedge but emerges, I’m relieved to see, without any evidence that it has located and robbed the blackbird’s nest. Keeping an eye on the fracas, a carrion crow flies down to next door’s apple tree, a song post for the blackbird.

My bridge camera, a Fujifilm FinePix S6800.
My bridge camera, a Fujifilm FinePix S6800.

Spring Planting

trees at the garden centreAt Cannon Hall country park the newly arrived chiff-chaffs are singing.

cherry, Sainsbury's car parkWe’re visiting the garden centre in search of plants for the bed in the front garden. Some of the plants that we’re after, such as salvias, can be tender, so those aren’t yet available. We decide to limit our colour scheme to blue/purple and yellow. We go for a variegated sedge, hebe, pale yellow primulas, miniature pansies and tête-à-tête daffodils. We’ll get the bed prepared, mulch it with chipped bark and plant those and keep adding more plants as they become available.  

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Leeds Trees

Trees in Hunslet

oliveRiver AireWhen we drop our car in for its annual service in Hunslet we like to walk alongside the River Aire to Leeds and make a day of it. Over the years on the river we’ve seen goosander, mallard, teal, cormorant, moorhen and kingfisher. We’ve seen goldfinches feeding on the cones of the riverside alders and a wagtail flitting about on a landing stage. Last year we saw our first warbler of the season, just flown in from Africa.

One year we met a knight walking his charger along the riverside path. This was at the time that the Royal Armouries Museum at Clarence Dock staged regular jousts in a tiltyard next to the museum.

Tree in HunsletI sketched the Birds of the Aire (left) on our first walk into Leeds from the garage, eleven years ago (on the same date, the 9th, and the same day of the week, a Wednesday).

Rain all day means that, for the first time, we miss out on our annual riverside ramble and content ourselves with dodging in and out of the shops in the city centre for a few hours. The art material stores of my college days in Leeds, Dinsdales and Jowett and Sowry have now moved out of the city centre so we were delighted to come across a new(ish) art and craft materials store, Fred Aldous, behind Leeds Market as you head towards Leeds Parish Church (now restyled as the Minster).

leuchtturm sketchbookNaturally I have to buy a sketchbook. Will the acid free paper in the pocket-sized Leuchtturm 1917 notebook prove more sympathetic to watercolour than the Moleskine sketchbooks that I was using last year? It’s going to be a while before I get around to trying it as I’m currently using my Derwent Black Journal as a pocket notebook, carrying it in my pocket along with a Lamy Vista pen and a small wallet of children’s crayons. I used it when drawing the trees as we waited for our car after its service at the Luscombe’s Suzuki.

Link: Birds of the River Aire, 9 March 2oo5.

First Warbler, 2 March 2015.

Fred Aldous, art & craft supplies

Leuchtturm 1917 sketchbooks

The Old Mill Race

ashbankCoxley Beck, Capri car park, 1.50 p.m., 39ºF, 4ºC, sun and showers: This ash and sycamore are growing on top of the steep bank that was once the mill race of a corn mill. The stone embankment has been eroded here, probably by flood damage. On the exposed mud banks fresh leaves are sprouting: dock, dandelion, cow parsley(?), hemlock(?), creeping buttercup, seedlings of himalayan balsam and a clump of snowdrops, which was no doubt washed down from one of the stream-side gardens. hart's tongeHigher up the bank, where it hasn’t been scoured so much by the December floods, there are a few clumps of hart’s tongue fern.

There’s a passing shower but I’ve brought my fishing umbrella so that isn’t a problem. I start adding the watercolour, lightest tones first, and, just when I’ve got those in, the sun comes out again and I’m able to mix in some neutral tint and paint in the shadows.

cropped-ashsyc.jpg

Ash by the Beck

ash by the beck

blackbird3 p.m., 38ºF, 4ºC: This old ash tree grows by a gravelly section of Coxley Beck.  It would be more usual to find a willow or an alder growing with its roots in the water but the stream may have changed course since this ash sprouted from an ash key, probably getting on for a hundred years ago.

wrenA blackbird forages under hollies on the bank behind me; a wren investigates the undergrowth alongside the path; long-tailed tits and blue tits check out the tree canopy; and wood pigeons coo monotonously in the tree tops.

dunnockIt’s a good time of year to start trying to learn bird songs and one that I always struggle with is the dunnock. It doesn’t belt out its song like the wren and it’s not as clear and wistful as the robin; it just hurries through a short jingle. I try to remember the song by sketching it as a series of notes.

My impression of the song of the dunnock.
Sketchy impression of the song of a dunnock.

‘a not unmusical hurried jingle of notes, shorter in duration and less powerful than the Wren’s.’

Alan J Richards, British Birds, A Field Guide

In the Complete Birds of Britain and Europe, Rob Hume describes the song as ‘quick, slightly flat, high-pitched, fast warble with little contrast or variation in pitch.’ That verdict sounds like a lukewarm put-down from one of the judges on a television talent contest.

Link: Sketch Bird Songs, a field session with John Muir Laws in the Sierra Nevadas

Ash Stump

ash wall

I return to finish my drawing of the old ash stump. It is growing on a south-facing bank that is supported by a drystone wall. The small rabbit is back, same time, same place: on the grassy slope next to the tree.

rabbitYesterday I also made a note of magpie, wood pigeon and of two long-tailed tits investigating the branches of the adjacent hawthorn and sycamore. A robin was flitting about and perching on a parking sign.

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Drawing in Gloves

silk glove

ash in pen

2.25 p.m., 43ºF, 8ºC, still and sunny: I spotted this ash stump growing on an old stone embankment wall when we visited the Go Outdoors store, Middlestown, yesterday. I’d gone looking for grippy gloves because the welt on the fingerless mittens that I’ve been using gets uncomfortable if you’re drawing for a while. My knuckles have been getting red and raw, drawing when it’s close to freezing.

I found the various gloves with gripper pads a bit cumbersome but we spotted some in pure silk which aren’t the warmest available as they’re mainly intended as lining gloves but they’re better than having exposed fingers. It’s easy to grip pen, water-brush and paintbox.

I found myself rushing to complete my drawing of Caphouse Beck yesterday so, today, when I sketch the rabbit which suddenly runs up the grassy bank and check my watch to record the time, I decide that I should allow myself more time so I’ll return tomorrow to finish off and add colour.ash sketch

mitten

Mitten (acrylic)

glove

Trekmates silk glove

rabbit

Links

Go Outdoors

Trekmates silk lining gloves

Crack Willow

crack willow10.30 a.m., 44ºF, 6ºC: Robin and song thrush are singing in the wood; other than that the soundtrack as I’m drawing is the wind in the willows, the patter of rain on my umbrella and the rippling of water over a gravelly bend of Coxley beck. The shower passes so that I’m able to discard the umbrella when it comes to adding the watercolour. That makes the process a whole lot easier.

I call this bend in the beck Willow Island but it’s only after heavy rain that this overgrown side channel fills with water. Wellies are essential when I’m drawing here as I have to wade along a 20 yard stretch of the beck. I proceed with caution as on one constricted bend the stream has scoured out a channel that looks more than wellie deep.

Canal-side Willow

canal-side willowlamy nibsI like the extra fine nib Lamy pen filled with brown ink for detailed natural history drawings but this afternoon, as I set off in a wintry shower to draw this willow by the canal, I find the bold nib and black ink more useful. Shower over, the tree goes into high contrast, backlit by the sun, so it’s useful to be able to quickly build up tone in the shadow areas, following the pattern of the bark with quick pen lines.

As you can see from my photograph, the bold nib (in the yellow pen on the left) has a rounded end which moves easily in any direction over the cartridge paper of my sketchbook. Being larger, it is freer flowing, giving an satisfyingly inky line.

Corsican Pine

Corsican PineStrong winds have pruned branches from the plantation conifers on the slopes around Langsett reservoir including this branch of Corsican Pine.