Category: Woodland

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

Walton Colliery nature park

  • Birches

I got so much from working in black and white last weekend but with some winter sun at last as we walked around the woodland and the lagoons at Walton Colliery nature park I couldn’t resist the  autumn colour against that clear blue sky.

Jay, buzzard and cormorant flew over.

Caphouse Nature Trail

  • Canker.

Photographed this morning on the nature trail at the National Coal Mining Museum for England, Caphouse Colliery, Overton, West Yorkshire.

A Spaniel in the Wood

The muddy entrance to Coxley valley. I walked along this makeshift duckboard but I would have felt safer wading through the mud.
A neighbour’s spaniel shortly before he provided me with a soft focus photographic filter by pressing his nose against the lens.
Even his owner’s tell me they’ve never succeeded in taking a good photograph of him. He usually ends up barking.
Stagshorn fungus growing on a log in the quarry.
Sandstone boulder, Coxley quarry. J Ellis lived in one of the cottages near Coxley Dam. Out of work during the 1930s recession he had plenty of time on his hands to carve this inscription. I once met a man here who said that J Ellis had rescued him when he’d got into difficulty swimming in the dam.