Richard Bell's nature sketchbook since 1998
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.
My sketchbook spread of found objects picked up on a lawn has an autumnal feel. We’re not quite there but on a dull August day there’s a feeling that the end of summer is looming.
Fine rain this morning picked out orb webs with glistening droplets.
I started this page at a family get-together yesterday afternoon in West Melton, near Rotherham, in a garden with several lime trees, planted in Victorian times. There were hundreds, probably thousands, of the limes’ helicopter seeds strewn over the lawn but so far not many leaves. This green heart-shaped leaf may have been torn off the tree in recent high winds but, because of the prominent damage, I wonder if the tree deliberately jettisoned it in an attempt to rid itself of whatever herbivore was starting to nibble holes in it.
The robust bluebell stem with upward-facing seedpods is probably Spanish bluebell, which was often planted in gardens but which has naturalised and in some places threatens to oust our native species.
A song thrush forages amongst the lush vegetation of the old railway embankment behind Books on the Lane, Walton, then flies down with a brown-lipped snail and thrashes it against the pebbles at the edge of the car park. Once it has extricated the mollusc it moves on to a fresh spot, whacks it again, eats a few morsels then flies off back up to the embankment, perhaps to feed its young.
1.30 p.m.: One of the song thrushes is bashing a snail against the concrete edging alongside the pavement. That corner of our garden should be a good hunting ground because last week, on a warm wet evening, I spotted a dozen garden snails nibbling the leaves of the hosta by the front door and I relocated them by chucking them diagonally across the lawn into the bottom of the beech hedge. Most likely they have slowly made their way back to the hosta.
But garden snails are getting on for twice the size of the other snail that we get in our garden, the brown-lipped, Cepaea nemoralis, and, so far, the song thrush is going exclusively for the smaller snail.
Having extricated the snail, the thrush goes to one of the clumps of sedge we’ve planted and wipes its beak against it, probably to remove the slime. It then takes a look around, probably on the look out for more food items to take to its young in the beech hedge.
It pounces on a large earthworm that it’s spotted beneath the rowan. It’s giving it a good tug when a blackbird flies in and there’s a head to head with lots of bluster and threat. At one stage the two birds are locked beak to beak in a tug of war with the unfortunate worm stretched between them.
But despite the spirited defence put up by the song thrush, the larger blackbird takes possession of a three inch length of worm and flies off behind next door’s leylandii hedge, pursued by the thrush. The thrush now has back-up: it’s mate has appeared.
The thrush might have lost the battle but when it 
returns it picks up the remaining section of worm which is twice the length of the piece snatched by the blackbird. The song thrush is feasting on this when the blackbird returns and tries to grab it but the thrush retreats across the road and continues to wolf down the worm. This time the blackbird doesn’t get the chance to snatch it away.
FLIES, INCLUDING one bluebottle and three glossily metallic greenbottles, are attracted to the slimy stain on this fragment of sandstone in the bottom corner of the garden. The Song Thrush has been using it as an anvil, leaving fragments of the shells of at least three Brown-lipped Snails and one Garden Snail. I think that the plain ochre yellow snail in the middle is a colour variation of the Brown-lipped Snail.
You might think that the colour would provide suitable camouflage in this corner of the garden but it evidently wasn’t enough for it to escape the attentions of the Song Thrush.
Soon after I’d started drawing this stump, a Bank Vole appeared, pausing under the stump before disappearing beneath it. Later I had a glimpse of its white front paws (do voles have ‘paws’?) beneath the adjoining log pile. Bank Voles have chestnut fur and a longer tail than that of the greyer Field Vole, which is also known as the Short-tailed Vole.
I’ve stacked the stump and sawn-up branches here as a habitat pile, so I’m pleased to see the vole using it.
But I have removed another habitat that it had been using; voles (or perhaps Wood Mice) had excavated a small network of tunnels beneath a clump of the Flag Iris that we removed from the pond. That has now gone on the compost heap.
There’s more than usual ant activity on the patio by the kitchen window this afternoon. It’s a still, warm settled day and it’s been chosen as the time for ant colonies in the area to release their winged queens and smaller winged males on a nuptial flight. 
Barbara said that on her walk home from work at 5 p.m. there were lots of them about, some of them landing on her as she walked down Quarry Hill.
