Richard Bell's nature sketchbook since 1998
Smithy Brook has spilt over onto the pastures a the lower end of Hostingley Lane by the Go Outdoors store. A dabchick divves amongst the beck-side trees.
At the far end of Low Lane, a male blackbird with white head and a small patch of white on the shoulder.
Yesterday morning: a buzzard on a fence post.
A bit of rivalry amongst ponies in a muddy pasture on Sandy Lane.
Sandstone for drystone walls and local buildings was available in blocks and small flagstones from the same small quarry near the small hamlet of Smithy Brook between Middlestown and Thornhill.
At first sight this chevron pattern in the rockface looks as if it might be the result of the layers being folded sharply over, like a half-closed book. The Smithy Brook valley follows a fault-line but the earth movements associated with that wouldn’t have folded the rocks over like that.
What I think happened is something like this:
Photographed this morning on the nature trail at the National Coal Mining Museum for England, Caphouse Colliery, Overton, West Yorkshire.
