Category: Woodland

Snow Showers

snow sketch

weatherwatch reportCoxley Valley, 10 a.m., 30ºF, -2ºC: I cross the beck which is brown with melt water to draw on a flat area that, thirty years ago, was a meadow. Since then alders and crack willows have spread from the side of the beck. wild garlicAt this time of year the leaves of wild garlic are starting to show amongst them but today a centimetre of snow covers the ground.  Wet snow patters on my fishing umbrella as I draw ivy and bramble on a fallen willow.

It’s so long since I drew in the snow (as opposed to drawing it as seen through our patio windows) that I record the scene in a photograph and submit it to the BBC Weather Watchers website.

snow on log

wren fernA wren flits across the puddly path as I leave the wood and hops under a bramble; a robin sings despite the snow shower. song thrushThe song thrush by the path at the edge of the beck isn’t singing but I have heard it at the edge of the wood when I’ve been drawing in the back garden.

Link: BBC Weather Watchers

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

Dog’s Mercury

dog's mercuryStoneycliffe Wood, Yorkshire Wildlife Trust nature reserve, 3.30 p.m., 39ºF, 4ºC: The only flowers showing on the woodland floor so far are the spikes of male flowers on dog’s mercury. The inconspicuous female flowers are on separate plants. Dog’s mercury is a member of the spurge family.

first celandineIn south-facing hedge-banks, lesser celandine is already in flower but here in the wood so far there are only a few heart-shaped leaves.

The larger leaves in the bottom right corner of my drawing are ground elder. Ground elder was introduced to this country by the Romans who cooked the leaves like spinach. While the right-hand leaf of the ground elder has been well nibbled there is very little sign of damage to the leaves of the dog’s mercury which, like the spurge, is poisonous.

pigeonThe stem of the bush in the top right corner of my drawing is elder, another plant with similar looking leaves. Glossy bluebell leaves are springing up but wood anemone and wood sorrel have yet to appear.

robinA robin is singing, a wood pigeon calling and pheasants are grockling.

Cardiac Hill

‘Did I hear the man on the phone describe this hill as Cardiac Hill’, I ask three passing dog walkers.

‘No I’ve never heard that one!’

‘It would be a good name’, I suggest, ‘the way it gets steeper and steeper as you get towards the top.’

jack russel‘I always come down it!’

‘Very wise!’

Stocksmoor

Stocksmoor1.50 p.m., looking east, cold wind from southwest, 40ºF, 5ºC: From medieval times, villagers had the right to graze their animals on Stocksmoor Common but, since grazing ceased there, silver birch and other trees have spread. In order to preserve the now rare habitat of unploughed, unimproved acid grassland, the Yorkshire Naturalists’ Trust has in recent years started grazing sheep and cattle on the reserve.

white cattleAs I finish my drawing, two of the White Park cattle come down to drink at the pond.

Link: Stocksmoor Common Yorkshire Wildlife Trust nature reserve.

Soaring Around Town

peregrine, meadow and loosestrife.2 p.m.: Peregrine flying past the town hall, over Wood Street, Wakefield, heading in the direction of the cathedral.

4.30 p.m.: Two weeks or so after the shortest day, the light already seems to be lingering longer in the afternoons. It helps that today has been a lot brighter than the wet, overcast days that we’ve had so much of recently.

The purple loosestrife seed heads were drawn with a dip pen, using Winsor & Newton peat brown ink.

A Rain-lashed Weekend

Coxley WoodThe rain was lashing in with such force yesterday afternoon that it smashed out an already broken pain of glass in the greenhouse, leaving shards of glass on the ground. A short storm in the afternoon drove lashings of spray down our road.

This afternoon, I painted directly in watercolour as the fading light added a touch of drama at the end of a dull November day. 

Boletus in Stoneycliffe

Oaks, Stoneycliffe WoodStoneycliffe Wood YWT nature reserve, 3.50 p.m., 52°F, 12ºC

boletusWe’re getting misty mornings and still sunny afternoons as we’re under high pressure. With no breeze and no birdsong the woods are surprisingly quiet as I walk up Coxley Valley for a short sketching session.

There’s a clatter of wood pigeon’s wings in the oaks above me. Mallards are quacking on the upper dam. Brief calls from jackdaws and a thin desultory song which I take to be a robin.

There are plenty of fungi about following the recent rain and this settled spell of fine weather including this boletus.

Summer Green

sun on streamyellow flagIn the wood the beck now runs through a tunnel of fresh green foliage backlit by the sun. There are so many trees in full leaf that the valley seen from the Balk looks like the edge of a forest but a pair of mistle thrushes and a heron appreciate the acres of open space where grass has been cut, most likely for silage. The Strands has been cut too but the marshier sections have been left. Yellow flag is in showy bloom.

summer greenThe landscape seems so lush and green that it feels as if it’s overdoing it, like a Samuel Palmer rural idyll. It’s the way England appears when I’ve been away in the Mediterranean and become accustomed to the grey green of herbs and olive trees. I come back and the green seems heronalmost overwhelming.

Buttercups are at their best, some of the currently ungrazed pastures almost rivalling some of the buttercup meadows we saw in the Dales last.

The causey stone path has narrowed since we last walked along it as the mixed hedges the cow parsley close in on it.

Tropic of Coxley

Coxley beckhawthornThere’s a tropical feel to Coxley wood this afternoon. On the path beyond the old quarry the beck flows at the foot of a steep earth bank and, on what I remember long ago as being an open grassy space, lush wild garlic, now in full flower, spreads between tall alders and willows. Also in full blossom a straggly hawthorn bush arcs its branches in front of the quarry face.

song thrushSong thrushes are remarkably loud, repetitive and insistent, like tropical birds. I’m also picking up an unfamiliar ratchet-like sound. Not a mistle thrush, I realise that it’s the neighbours’ dog, Poppy, pulling on her extendable lead.

The top end of the wood is looking equally good with the oaks in fresh leaf and dripping with little light green catkins.

lapwingThere are more song thrushes singing as we walk alongside the canal. On the Strands, the marshy field between the river and canal, a lapwing is calling. I’m glad to see them making a comeback over the past two months I’ve occasionally spotted them flying over our street, not so far away.

Return to Willow Island

It might the shortest day but there’s just time before the light fades to get into the wood. The days will be getting longer from now on so I feel that after a difficult and disrupted autumn there couldn’t be a better time to get back to nature and to creative work. There isn’t time to sit and draw in what’s left of the daylight but, after enjoying the black and white photography challenge last month, I’m keen to push my skills in another direction and have a go at making little movies again.

These still photographs were taken on my FujiFilm FinePix S6800 digital camera, the background sound recorded in one take using my iPad Mini and the whole thing put together in iMovie.

I used the Alon Dictaphone app for the recording. It’s free but the file transfer extension is a £1.69 in app purchase and I felt it was worth another 69 pence to remove the advertising banner which floats annoyingly in the foreground as you’re holding your precious iPad inches above a babbling eddy in the brook!

Links; Alon Dictaphone