Richard Bell's nature sketchbook since 1998
My latest trainers, Skechers Arch Fit, made in Vietnam, so currently in line for a 46% tariff in the USA.
In 4 days in Paris we walked 33 miles from Batignoles in the 17th Arrondissment to Montmartre and as far as Shakespeare & Co in ‘Kilometre Zero’ by the Seine opposite newly restored Notre Dame.
The hollow between my thumb and my wrist is the anatomical snuff box. The tendon on its outside edge is an abductor, it pulls the thumb outwards. This muscle and tendon, the APL, is the one that I need to strengthen and rehabilitate on my right hand.
I’ve long struggled with soft, high-pitched bird calls. I’ve never been able to pick out the contact calls of redwings migrating after dark, despite a astonished birder friend insisting “You must have heard that! – they’re all over the place.”
And, sadly, the song of the grasshopper warbler, which reminds me of a fishing reel unreeling, is something I haven’t heard for over 25 years, although it’s possible that’s simply because they haven’t returned to the bushes and brambles by the river in my local patch.
So my latest NHS state-of-the-art hearing aids have been an eye-opener – or should that be ear-opener – for me. On a normally quiet stretch of tree-lined towpath in a cutting by the canal we’ve now got chiff-chaffs in stereo, just in from Spain, Portugal and North Africa, proclaiming their territories.
Equally strident, the ‘tee-cher, tee-cher, tee-cher’ of the great tit. Less strident, but loud and cheerful, the chaffinch hurries through an emphatically chirpy song.
My latest rucksack for city breaks, the Eurohike Ratio 18.
Our leeks are smaller than usual as we were late planting them out as we waited for our new raised beds to be constructed.
It’s rather late to be harvesting them but they’re fine. It’s encouraging to have such a good crop from the revamped veg beds.
They worked well in our leek, courgette and Boursin cheese tart.
My studio window faces south-east so I was in an ideal position to set up my telescope to project the solar disc during a partial solar eclipse which reached its maximum at about 11 o’clock this morning, as the Moon passed in front of the Sun.
There was a single sunspot towards the ‘south-west’ limb of the sun.
Although I’ve messed about with these images in Photoshop and Lightroom, I think that some of the mottling in this close-up of the projected image – for instance the halo around the sunspot – are the actual granules of convection cells in the Sun’s photosphere.
A great-crested Wild Yorkshire nature diary in the April Dalesman.
There’s currently some landscaping going on on the far side of the River Calder here at Addingford, Horbury, but the biggest improvement to the river’s appearance would be if we could reduce the amount of plastic, hanging in tatters from the bankside vegetation.
Plastic isn’t such a problem in Coxley Beck but there is occasional pollution from a small water treatment unit below the dam.
Spring migrants have arrived in Stoneycliffe Wood with dozens of chiff-chaffs singing their repetitive signature song alongside the equally strident great tits with their ‘tee-cher, tee-cher, tee-cher’ routine.
Only the robin adds a touch of wistfulness with its trickle of a song. If there were any early arrival willow warblers I couldn’t pick them out.
At Nostell, in the Pleasure Grounds woodland, we heard a great spotted woodpecker drumming. The old partly decayed sweet chestnuts make good sounding boards. As we entered the wood we heard one calling insistently – that’s not something we’re familiar with – and observed a pair come together on a branch high in the tree canopy and there appeared to be a rather formal presentation of some food item: a bit of courtship feeding.
We don’t see as many green woodpeckers as we used to. I don’t remember having seen one or heard its ‘yaffle’ call for a year or more so we were glad to see a pair just above the weir at Horbury Junction on Monday morning. As we walked along the riverside path we disturbed one on the ground. It flew up into one of the riverside trees and was joined by a second bird.
Spring migrants are arriving but the last of our winter visitors are still with us. A week ago we saw a small flock of redwings join a larger flock of starlings on the grassy slopes of the valley.
On the same day on a quiet stretch of the river 28 wigeon have gathered below the steep bank. We’ve seen them grazing in the adjacent field between the river and the canal.
Wigeon have been regulars, along with a few gadwall, but more unusual was the pair of teal we spotted, twirling around on a smooth section of the river and apparently snapping up insects.
Goosanders have been regulars too. We saw two pairs resting on a strip of shingle at the foot of the bank by The Wyke, looking as if they might be considering nesting there (which isn’t likely). Today there were two lone males there.
This morning a pair of oystercatchers were circling over the river and landing on the adjacent bank, piping enthusiastically.
A lapwing has been diving and calling over an arable field over the last couple of weeks. I hope it stays and raises a brood.
Hoof fungus, also known as Tinder Bracket, Fomes fomentarius, on a beech trunk – all that’s left standing of the tree – at Thornhill Rectory Park.
Alongside a track through fields of seedling oilseed rape there’s a stretch of hedge where many of the branches are encrusted with this yellow foliose (leaflike) lichen, Xanthoria parietina, sometimes called common orange lichen. It will grow on twigs, branches and stonework, even on painted surfaces, especially where extra nutrients are available – for instance from bird droppings. In this case the extra nutrients might come from overspray from the field and to a smaller extent perhaps from the exhaust from the occasional passing vehicle on this quiet country lane.