Kite flying

Red kites - they're ace! A six foot span of auburn majesty, tail twisting and flicking as if to show that an apparently effortless flight really does need a bit of skill and precision.

This kite lifted my spirits on the way to work. Cheers, I needed that.

The first frost

thorpe arch
Originally uploaded by wherethewolvesare.

We've had the first taste of winter this week, just a small one but definitely there, with the first frost of the year closely followed by a second a couple of days later.
We were out at Thorpe Arch at the weekend. A slightly odd place, a small village but with a trading estate (we were looking for a bed for Nathan), a prison, a large British Library building and the Leeds United training ground! Best bit though is the fields surrounding all this. We saw a very nice wintry mixed flock of starlings, lapwings and golden plovers (another first of the season for me). The goldies' bellies flashed bright white as the flock went up, spooked by a kestrel or probably less.

The wanderer returns

I will do my honest best to blog more regularly, I promise. But fear not, dear heart, I have not been idle. Just preferring to sketch than sit at a computer, I've been enjoying the simple pleasure of drawing what is around me. None of the scenes sketched are more than a mile and a half from home. Quietly watching the seasons change, from late summer to this wonderfully mild autumn. I implore you to do the same

An Indian Summer?

boston spa
Originally uploaded by wherethewolvesare.

Is it too early to be an indian summer? Does October have to be warm as well? Well, by UK standards this has been a very warm September, normally we'd have the winter coats out by now. Thoughts of global warming aside, it's been lovely. In the garden, the californian poppies are still flowering and the choisya and the bachelor's buttons are flowering for a second time. The solanum and the fuschsia are still impressively in flower too, but they'd flower till November in Alaska I'd suspect.

For all that, there are still signs of the coming autumn. The mists every morning this week evoke the season and the increasing number of gulls collecting on various patches of grass and ploughed earth are backing it up. Also, I haven't seen a swallow or a housemartin in over a week.

Yesterday, we went to the park in Boston Spa and this sketch (in Derwent drawing pencils) is the view into the distance between the trees. The rolling farmland to the north east of Leeds has a very English feel about it and is certainly looking it's best at this time of year.

The day before yesterday

filey brigg
Originally uploaded by wherethewolvesare.

Back again, but this time my absence has been due to being a busy dad, rather than a poor driver or a bad patient – see 8th August’s post.

Anyway, after saying it seemed like a long summer in 15th July's post, it's turned into a proper British summer. The warm weather broke just a fortnight later and we've had grey skies and regular rain ever since. We went to Filey on the east coast on Tuesday and the forecast was for scattered showers. Boy, was that forecast spot on. On the journey there and back, and all day as well, we could see grey blurry columns in the distance between low cloud and the land, where showers were breaking out. At one point, we counted five seperate showers going on around us, it reminded me of the scene in the film 'The Day After Tomorrow' when the tornadoes were breaking out all over Los Angeles (but obviously not as scary – my thoughts are with you if you’re anywhere near Ernesto or one of his friends). I once stood in torrential rain for 6 hours, next to a Northumbrian reservoir, hoping to see a spotted sandpiper (I blanked) so I can do wet but I’m not really very keen on being out in the rain. Today’s show made the rain interesting at least.

The sketch is of Filey Brigg (a spit of rock jutting out into the north sea) during a brighter spell. The Brigg is a fascinating place, good for fossils, you could easily fill a wheelbarrow with fossilised corals and just up the coast is the world’s longest stretch of dinosaur footprints. Good for birds as well, a few years back I badly wanted to see a live storm petrel so I stayed up all night and climbed down the Brigg in the dark to take part in a storm petrel ringing session in order to see one. About a month later, I was on holiday on Mull, minding my own business down by the water’s edge at a far more godly hour when a storm petrel fluttered by. I guess that’s the nature of the beast – birdwatching and storm petrels.

Not so close encounters

For the last two Fridays, Deb has been to a scrapbooking class in Harrogate. Both days, Nathan's been at nursery and I've looked after Mia after dropping Deb off. We've had lots of errands to do, so no time to really get back to nature but don't you think it's the glimpses of the natural world that you see as you go about our unnatural world that make your day and keep you going? Well, my encounters yesterday did for me.

Unusually, last week I drove through Wharfdale five times in one day without seeing a red kite - unusual considering that this is a site where they have reintroduced. Normal service was resumed yesterday, with a handful seen at various times, lazily wheeling over the stunning Wharfedale countryside (top sketch). There were a couple of skeins of geese flying down the valley, probably Canada or greylag geese but too distant too be sure. Thinking about geese, in the evening I sketched a goose, in sanguine pencil, from a photo on a magazine cover (bottom sketch - no, really).

Corvids and rosebay willowherb were the other things to catch the eye, together at that. A golden yellow field of corn or wheat stubble was being picked over by somewhere near four to five hundred inky black rooks and crows, pecking, squabbling, some riding the wind over the field. I'm convinced that corvids just like to play in the wind, having watched them swoop and tumble for no apparent reason, every time a wind gets up. Anyway, I digress - the field was edged with a cerise bank of fireweed, a name that conveys so much more than 'rosebay willowherb'. It was just a shame I didn't have the time to stop long enough to make a sketch.

Holiday Stories

I'm back!

What an eventful couple of weeks I've had. We went on holiday to Anglesey again, staying close to the home of Charles Tunnicliffe (who illustrated the book, Tarka the Otter, and much, much more). I wrote off the car in a crash on the first day, but we all got out without a scratch, Deb's horoscope said it would be the luckiest week of her life - and then some! Despite this we spent an idyllic week on the beach. I even swam in the sea one still morning, not a common occurence for me in the UK. Perfect setting, perfect natural history, perfect weather, perfect company, we were very sad to come home.

I spent most of the first week back in A&E (Emergency room - US), Doctors' surgeries and various other hospital departments, due to excruciating stomach pains. It was a bit of gastritis, hopefully sorted now.

These events make you think about what's important and put everything else in perspective. Could have been worse, my mum came back from a holiday in Canada (somewhere between Calgary and Vancouver) having nearly been eaten by a bear when she got out of the car to look at some pretty red wild flowers, now that would have made a holiday story worth telling.

By the way, the sketches are of the view to Rhoscolyn (top) and to Rhosneigr (bottom), both from Porth Nobla where we stayed.