Richard Bell's nature sketchbook since 1998
Male fern, knapweed and teasel from behind the pond and the meadow area. As I slowly walked down the garden, five female pheasants kept an eye on me but didn’t walk off under the hedge until I started snipping off a small teasel head in our little ‘meadow’ area.
It’s good to see the cascade between the Middle and Lower Lakes at Nostell in action again after years when the overflow was diverted because of problems with the dam.
3.02 pm: A sparrowhawk swoops around the bird feeder, perches in the crab apple for a moment, then flies off without catching anything.
Early afternoon snow, an after effect of yesterday’s Storm Arwen, covers the seed heads of the plant formerly known as Sedum, now Hylotelephium spectabile. A female blackbird and dunnock forage beneath the feeders which attract great tits and blue tits, a coal tit and a nuthatch.
The snow soon starts to melt and these cyclamen, in the bed beside the patio beneath the cordon apples, look none the worse for it.
