The days are getting longer but by the time I get around to painting this in the late afternoon, getting on for half past four, the light is fading fast.
Fading Light
Category: Woodland
Roe Deer and Hoar Frost
No mud this morning, the ground is frozen solid and the leaf litter and debris on the paths crunch like gravel as we walk up through the woodland of Emroyd Common. Hoar frost crystals have formed in a few patches in sheltered spots alongside a hedgerow and there are ferny patterns on car windscreens.
Two roe deer trot along at the edge of a pasture along the top edge of the wood.
For several days as we passed the houses at the top end of our lane, I’ve been scanning around to see if there was a buzzard or red kite circling. As we were beginning to suspect, it is actually a starling giving what to me seems like a passable impersonation of a buzzard mewing.
As we walk back through Emroyd we disturb a buzzard, which flies off down the slope through the oak woodland.
Widescreen Watercolours
I’m starting a 12 x 6 inch format Pink Pig sketchbook, 150 gsm textured Ameleie paper (their own make). I’ve started with a couple of half-hour watercolour sketches, trying to get away from my usual approach of drawing in detail first, then colouring in.
I quickly drew outlines in pencil for my first sketch (top) but started straight off in watercolour with the second.
Yesterday I’d made a start: I’ve drawn this view (below) from the garden centre at Shelley several times over the years but I draw it as if I’m recording the shapes of fields and woodland for a sketch map. Yesterday, fortified with latte and an elderflower and blueberry flapjack, I dived straight in with the Pentel Aquash water brush.
Link
Birch
New Hall Wood, Midgley, 40℉, 5℃: The holly sapling next to this twin trunk of silver birch already has a stem of honeysuckle climbing up it, twisting loosely anti-clockwise as seen from above. As you’d expect, the patch of moss is on the shady north-facing side of the tree.
Great to be back drawing on location. Robin singing from a holly bush, crows cawing. As I attach my sketchbook to my drawing board it drops onto damp moss, leaving a greenish smear across the page, providing a patina for my drawing.
Quest Coxley
My November ‘Dalesman’ article: ‘Quest Coxley’, an intrepid search for the source of Coxley Beck, filmed on Standard 8, April 1966, with my friend John, armed with a 19th-century cavalry sword, in the Indiana Jones role.
Stoneycliffe Wood
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, also known as ransons, Allium ursinum.
A tattered peacock butterfly, Nymphalis io, pauses to feed on the flowers.
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 (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.
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, Veronica montana, straggles over a mossy log by a woodland track. It’s a plant of moist, neutral soils, often found in ancient woodland.
Staghorn Sumac
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.
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.
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.
Dawn by Calor-gas-light
Monday 30/Tuesday 31 July, 1973, RSPB Loch Garten: Monday was a good night for night watch. The Moon went down behind Craigowrie, Jupiter shone over Torr Hill and Mars came up red behind the eyrie. When it became really dark at midnight there were about 5 times as many stars out as I’d see on a good night at home . . . the Milky Way a streak above the eyrie running right through the W of Cassiopeia. The Pleiades, thousand of them, blue in binoculars came up left of tree.
The dramatic dawn, blinding bright when the sun got up behind the eyrie and shone directly into the hide.
Torr Hill
Thursday 9th August 1973, from my Osprey Camp, Loch Garten, sketchbook: What a wind; swaying the forest pines, bending over the birches on the moor, breaking up the bank of cloud coming up the valley. There was white water on the gullery and grey breakers on Garten when I got round. I walked on shore getting sprayed.
‘They’ll moulder away and be like other loam.’ said Edwin Muir in his poem ‘The Horses’. This lorry was mouldering away on Torr Hill.
The ‘Bloodsucker’
More insects from Dalby Forest, including the soldier beetle, Rhagonycha fulva, also known as ‘the bloodsucker’ because of its colour. It’s harmless, but we aren’t far from Whitby, where Dracula came ashore, so who knows?