Sessile oak, dandelion, timothy grass, plantain, yellow flag, hawthorn blossom and seeding willow catkins at Wintersett Reservoir this morning.
Wintersett in May
Shelf Space
It’s got to the stage where, if I’m buying a new book, I let an old one go. It’s difficult because even the ones that I’m not going to read again usually have some kind of story behind them.
Sheepdog Satnav
Happy birthday to Roger, who doesn’t need satnav to find his way around the Dales.
Kentia Palm
The Kentia Palm, Howea fosteriana, also known as the palm court palm or thatch palm is, as you might expect, a member of the Palm Family, Arecaceae, native to the Lord Howe Islands, which lie 500 miles to the north east of Sydney, Australia.
My thanks to Antonin from Evian (the town, not the bottled water company) for the French translations of items in the cruet at the Holmfield Arms.
Bass Rockers
Happy birthday (yesterday) to Bass Rocker Liz.
Curled Dock
Curled dock, Rumex crispus, growing at the edge of the car park at Newmillerdam, is a common weed of rough ground, farmland and the sea shore.
Nearby another weed of rough ground, hogweed, Heracleum sphondylium, was starting to unfurl its leaves from large, hairy sheathes.
The Owl Experience
At a Yorkshire Owl Experience at Horbury Library we were introduced to Amba, as scops owl from Central Africa, and Caspa, an Indian eagle owl who was in the process of moulting but I drew three of our native owls: barn, tawny and little owl (Jack, Dusty and Charlie).
Link
Brown-lipped Snail
6th May: I picked up a dried up sycamore leaf from a shady corner of John’s garden and found this brown-lipped snail, Cepaea nemoralis, hidden beneath attached to the leaf. We had a dry April so the snail might have settled down to a period of inactivity known a aestivation.
Spiderlings
Two little clusters of spiderlings, hanging low down by our front door.
When I went in close with my Olympus Tough, I must have caught some of the surrounding strands of silk because the spiderlings started to disperse. They soon clustered together again.
Cuckoo Flower and Hawthorn
Cuckoo flower grows at the edge of the pond and in our closely trimmed garden hedge there are a few small clusters of blossom.