Fallow Deer Slots

Serpentine lake at Wentworth Castle

The Serpentine Lake at Wentworth Castle has silted up over the centuries and been colonised by willows. Last time we were here we met an 80-year old man who started work as a gardener here aged fourteen. A week after his retirement, he returned as a volunteer. He remembered when there was more open water on the Serpentine and, as a boy, he could paddle and swim his way down, taking the occasional egg from the nests of the waterbirds on his way.

A mallard duck leads her brood of young ducklings amongst the dense cover of the willows.

Alongside the tracks of the birds in the soft mud at the water’s edge, there are the slots of fallow deer. I can be sure of my identification: there are no sheep to confuse the issue in this section of the park.

tracks in mud
Fallow deer slots
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Categorized as Drawing

Yellow Flag

flag iris

11.15 a.m., 70℉, 21℃, storm cloud looking threatening to the west, but we escape the worst of it: The triple flower-heads of Yellow Flag Iris look complicated, but they work perfectly when a bumble bee lands on them. I assume that it would take one of the larger bees to trigger the mechanism and enter the flower, but a smaller bumble bee manages just as easily.

The coots’ nest near the war memorial has been neatly built up since last week and there are at least three chicks.

birds

Back home, I draw some of the visitors to the bird feeders. In additions to the greenfinch, blackbird, starling, blue tit, robin, wood pigeon and house sparrow that I’ve sketched here, we had a male great spotted woodpecker coming to the feeders and a grey squirrel with a very undernourished tail.

Newt Survey

smooth newts in washing up bowl
newts

My thanks to Connie, Sofia and Annabelle for doing a bit of pond dipping in our back garden yesterday. They reported a single large water beetle and the odd damselfly larva but they made no mention of tadpoles or young frogs. That might be because of the numbers of newts in the pond.

Final Results

Smooth Newts 22, of which only 5 were female, so in this sample less than a quarter of the population is female. On the occasions that I’ve seen a newt caught by a blackbird I’ve often spotted the bright orange belly of the male.

Little Lost Chicks

wild flowers
blue tit
One of the blue tits still feeding its young in the nest box this morning.

The blue tit chicks left the nest box this afternoon while we were out but sadly not all of them made it. As I sat drawing the clover and wood avens, I noticed that one unfortunate chick had ended up in the pond but, better news, I heard, then saw another chick from the bottom of the hedge, right next to me. I packed up immediately and one of the parents soon came down to feed it.

Warbler

foxtail
Meadow foxtail and field maple at Alverthorpe Meadows.

A warbler signs its scratchy song from the branches of a willow at the balancing ponds at Alverthorpe Meadows. I record it to check out the song later but on my recording its drowned out by a louder, more melodious blackbird.

Foxtail grass
Meadow Foxtail

The warbler is very plain, so we’re torn between garden warbler and whitethroat. We need to get a closer look . . . and a clearer recording

Foxglove

foxglove

Of course I’ll draw them when they’re in flower, but I like foxgloves at this stage, with the cluster of flower buds beginning to unfurl.

foxglove buds

My company as I draw this on my wild flower patch at the end of the garden includes a female sparrow picking over the wood chip path, a blackbird singing behind me over the hedge, a dunnock giving its hurried trill and a jumping spider checking out my legs. I’m wearing shorts so I can track its progress over my hairy legs without looking up from my drawing, so I miss its daring leap from knee to knee.

foxglove

The rosette of leaves at the foot of the plant also makes an interesting subject. But I will draw those flowers as they appear over the next few weeks.

June

spurge

The first day of meteorological summer seems as good a time as any to try and get back to writing a regular nature diary and the day got off to a good start because we had a pair of bullfinches on the sunflower heart feeders. No sign of young yet, or of the female disappearing as she sits on the eggs.

It’s a different story for the blue tits in nestbox on our patio, they’re at the busiest phase of rearing chicks, the male has a routine of bringing in a small green caterpillar, feeding the young, then taking a break to nibble a sunflower heart from the bird feeder before flying off towards the wood again. During the whole process he and his mate are in a state of wing-quivering excitement, blue crests rising as they look around for any potential danger.

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Categorized as Drawing

Every Flower Counts

results

With ‘No Mow May’ drawing to a close, it’s time to count the flowers that have sprung up on our front lawn. I throw a small chunk of wood over my shoulder to randomly select my square metre sample.

Results: 8 daisies, 2 common mouse-ear and 75 germander speedwell flowers.

Plantlife calculate that, taking this as an average for my 14.4 square metre lawn, the flowers are producing 1.7 milligrams of nectar per square metre, enough to support 2 bees across the entire lawn.

Let’s hope that I can improve on that with next year’s ‘Every Flower Counts’ survey.

Totties

view from Totties
New Mill Church

In Old English, ‘tōta’ was a look-out post, which is appropriate for the hamlet of Totties, perched on the hill overlooking New Mill.

Christ Church, New Mill, built in 1830 was designed in gothic revival style by Peter Atkinson.

Drawn, during our latte and scone break, from Totties Garden Centre, one of two garden centres in the village.

Picnic on the Patch

Picnic on the Patch cartoon
snail mail

Note: Slimer & Shelley have now been relocated to the other side of the hedge, following their night raid on the climbing French beans.

snail cartoon