Tag: wildlife
Wildlife Moments
Watching the busy birds and animals at my workshop and in the surrounding fields and countryside fills me with pleasure. Sometimes I’ve dedicated hours to it and seen nothing, and at other times everywhere I turn there’s spectacle and revelation. Those days of wildlife moments fill me to bursting with inspiration, with energy, to […]
Easter Sunday morning
Woke exceptionally early (too much chocolate the night before?!) and was met by a frost. Anxiously did my round of checks at the workshop, new seedlings, just planted out sweet-peas, my re-located Good-King-Henry plant, tender parsley, my tiny Oak – all okay! Collected the goose eggs, and hadn’t at all needed to decorate any, […]
Lapwing Sculpture
I didn’t expect that this piece of Cobalt stone would become a Lapwing – I thought the colouring and patterning might suit something more abstract. When thinking about sculpting a Lapwing I had imagined it in sandstone – then all of a sudden I saw this chunk of serpentine, not as a lump of […]
Face Feathers
The Barn Owl that visits my workshop sits on one of the beams, and seems to spend lots of time preening. In the morning I find the feathers on the workshop floor. Recently the feathers have been from the Barn Owl’s face – small, almost bristly feathers, stiff and strongly curved. Some have the […]
A walk with three toes
Instead of taking my usual route I followed tracks in the snow. Overnight there had been a deep frost so I crunched as I walked. A clear, winding set of footprints marked the way. These were pheasant imprints and I took its walk. It became difficult at times, on hands and knees, in and […]
Winter Preenings
I’ve collected these feathers over the last few months. The soft, feathery gifts lie beneath the Barn Owl’s nightly perch, and show me she stayed there a while to preen. Sometimes there is just the tiniest wisp of grey fluff in evidence, and at others, treasures like these. They are so soft and light […]
Mottled Green Diver
Divers are a small family of large water birds with three species regularly seen in the UK – Black Throated, Red Throated and Great Northern Diver. The Mottled Green is rarer! All have long, slender bodies, moderately long necks and dagger-shaped bills, narrow wings and small legs (with long, lobed toes) set far back on […]
Big Garden Birdwatch
This is a Dunnock, perching on the edge of my trailer. This bird became the star of my Big Garden Birdwatch last year. This afternoon I’m getting ready for the 2014 watch, filling up feeders and making sure the birdbaths are topped up with fresh water. I love this dedicated hour of watching my […]
Knotty Brambles
I’ve spent time this weekend clearing brambles. The area where they grow, down the side of my workshop, used to be a hedgerow, there are ash tree stumps and it is a place I tend to leave to grow naturally wild. The geese have made nests and laid eggs there in the thick […]
MBE for Ryedale Wildlife Rehabilitation
I was so pleased to see on the front of our local paper today that Jean Thorpe, who founded Ryedale Wildlife Rehabilition, is receiving the MBE for services to wildlife rescue in Yorkshire. For over thirty years Jean has been dedicated to the rescue and returning to the wild, of injured and sick animals […]