Ah, nature!

The week included a trip to Kew Gardens for the purpose of drawing. But we spent a lot of time looking at trees ... I have a fascination for Swamp Cypress with its knobbly roots - known as knees - that may help the waterlogged tree to breathe -

 These roots belong to a Mexican Cypress -

These ...

 ... became this -

The little blob is definitely not a squished insect!

 Inveterate collector, I found seeds and other bits on the ground

 and took them home, to spend time looking hard at them -

 A forgotten bag containing an earlier collection yielded these -

for subsequent observation and recording, though I forget what they are. Larch and alder and oak and London plane are among them, but what are the long dark ones?

The strong winds have sent pairs of reddened crabapples cascading from a tree round the corner, but those on another street, a different variety, clung tightly -

 And the back garden at Tom's has had a deluge of apples from the tree next door, each with signs of a resident insect and some with a bruise. Two grandmothers spent a congenial hour collecting, chopping and peeling (and discarding) and making apple puree to be frozen for porridge and/or for the grandbaby -

Poetry Thursday - concerning the bees

The book came to me via a library sale, and is not just a pretty cover (by Timorous Beasties), it's a jolly good read about (Professor) Dave Goulson's researches on bumblebees in various places around the world. Fascinating.

Halfway through, the chapters start to be headed with snippets of poems. I hope that, gathered together, they will provide a poetic picture of this important insect.

Burly, dozing bumblebee,
Where thou art is clime for me.
Let them sail for Porto Rique,
Far-off heats through seas to seek.
I will follow thee alone,
Thou animated torrid-zone!
     -Ralph Waldo Emerson

The music of the busy bee
Is drowsy, and it comforts me;
But, ah! 'tis quite another thing,
When that same bee concludes to sting!
     - Andrew Downing

Is this wretched demi-bee,
Half asleep upon my knee,
Some freak from a menagerie?
No! It's Eric the half a bee!
     - Monty Python, 1972

The cuckoo comes in April
She kills a Queen in May
She enslaves her brood
To gather up food
And in July she dies away.
     - Anon

Concerning the bees and the flowers
In the fields and the gardens and bowers,
You will note at a glance
That their ways of romance
Haven't any resemblance to ours.
     - Anon

To make a prairie it takes a clover and a bee,
One clover, and a bee,
And revery.
The revery alone will do,
If bees are few.
    - Emily Dickinson

Woodberry Wetlands

My excuse for a walk on a sultry Monday morning was to have coffee at the Coal House. What with stopping to photograph trees in Finsbury Park, the walk took nearly an hour....

An overgrowth of flowers, ok what some people call weeds, everywhere -

 So beautiful!

 The vines were all over the place in the reedbeds -

Bullrushes bursting with pollen near the sluice -

 View across the lake - lots of building going on -

 The cafe has a roof terrace and, even more practical, a huge awning -

 I did do a "daily" drawing - with a perfectly decent pen found on the towpath -

(I'm still trying to get into the daily drawing habit ... it's like stopping smoking, the more often you try, the more likely you are to succeed!)

Wildflower meadows - delightful vistas -

 ... and some very useful insects -

"Distinctive wildlife artist"

An artist new to me - though it was rather distressing to discover Greg Poole and his work through the obituary column. There's a tribute from a friend here, and artistic appreciation here.

He wrote about how he came to his art here:

"I was fortunate to be able to rent a house on Bardsey Island for 6 months in 1988 where I really did draw all day every day but ended up realising that I didn’t know how to take the drawings forward.

The block of work made on Bardsey got me a place on a foundation course at Manchester polytechnic and there I realised how thirsty I was for knowledge about materials and ways to go beyond just drawing what I saw. That year was by far the best academic experience of my life and there aren’t many days when I don’t refer back to some aspect of that course."

Monoprint of gannets (via)

Other gannets (via)

RSPB Award 2015, Short-eared Owl Flying
near Diggers (via)

Norfolk memories

Helen's chicken collection, and her actual chickens, c.2010 - they would wander into the kitchen, given half a chance -

We went for a walk on the coast and saw - and smelled! - walruses on the beach, and I'm sure I took photos of them, but they're not in the same file ...

The sky is reflected in the water, as you might expect,

but also...

... the water reflects the sky, in this accidental juxtaposition

Why these, now? I'm trawling through photo files, in the never-ending quest for some sort of organisation of images ... and coincidentally, Helen has come to London (minus chickens).

One thing leads to another

The goldcrest is the smallest European bird (via)

This perambulation among online resources started when I set out to send a picture-essay about the silversmith's studio to some friends ... and then I noticed the interesting links at the end of the article...

So here's the cascade of links to "interesting stuff" - hope some of it hits the spot for you!

Silversmith's studio - insight into tools and processes - 

https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2017/oct/20/the-ancient-craft-of-silversmithing-in-pictures

Pocket knife maker

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/gallery/2016/nov/02/revival-of-the-little-mesters-a-sheffield-pocket-knife-maker-in-pictures 

Pencils!!

https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2017/nov/04/me-and-my-pencil-famous-creatives-on-their-tools-in-pictures

Art from tiny objects

https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2017/feb/11/small-is-beautiful-art-from-tiny-objects

DIY art therapy (book art)

https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2017/jun/17/improving-books-diy-art-therapy-in-pictures

Long article on recipes and their spread through social media

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2017/jun/18/great-recipe-explosion-social-media-does-more-mean-better-instagram-pinterest

"Recipes are such a ubiquitous technology, we sometimes take for granted just how much we have benefited from their diffusion."

Creativity helps you stay well [not news, this!]

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2017/nov/05/art-and-soul-how-sparking-creativity-helps-you-stay-well

"We need to remind ourselves that creativity can be as simple as playing or doing things differently, so that we give ourselves permission to open the door to other activities and usher in all the benefits that come with this"

Wildlife wonders

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/gallery/2017/nov/03/the-week-in-wildlife-in-pictures

(more links to "week in wildlife" compilations are at the bottom of that one)

And there, with the goldcrest and other natural wonders, we stop ... for now ...

Non-lost dogs and the ghosts of baby swans

The current obsession with getting 10K steps "done" every day has got to be a good thing. I'm out in the air, looking at things, encountering small unexpectednesses... and exercising willpower not just in the continuing walking but also in trying not to take so many photos! 

Having spent all day sitting in libraries/galleries and on the train after my delightful jaunt to Manchester, on getting back I set out to Waitrose in hopes they still had my usual "free" newspaper [they did].  The "long loop" along Parkland Walk is about 5K steps - perfect.

But what's this? a little dog, wandering on his own ... no people in sight, so we dawdled along together, in mutual hope that an owner would appear [she did] -

 Lots of runner out for an early-evening jog - and the trees so big, so green so cooling -

I've passed this structure in the adventure playground, near the skateboarding area, many times and never really noticed it before ... perhaps it was the encounter with Susan Hefuna's work at the Whitworth (till 3 Sept) that brought it to notice now -

I'm keeping my eye on this bit of wrapping on Stanhope Rd -

 and was intrigued by the wellie-rack along The Avenue -

 2
Sunday - today - promised to be rather hot (it is) so I set off early with breakfast in mind, through park and along canal, and then round the pond in the wetland nature park to the Coalhouse Cafe, the heritage building with the tent beside it -

 The path often sported a central fissure -

 This was due, said the workman with a truckful of sand and a large shovel, to the concrete contracting in the heat and opening up cracks.

The cafe was quite quiet when I arrived, no buggy brigade just yet

 but by the time I'd read a bit of the review section of yesterday's paper the tables were filling up and the noise level was rising as each dad tried to talk louder than the other [imho].

Reedbeds right round the water, and rose bay willow herb in the (blurry) background - many birds too, but I was trying not to take toooo many photos -

 At the east entrance, or exit, a wildflower meadow in various stages of bloom and seed -

Teasels and dock

Teasel seeds setting off on their perilous journey

Just before the canal disappeared under the big road, a grille gave it some wonderful reflections -

You could photograph these forever

Closer up

The canal is actually, or was, the New River, which brought water into the city from ... hmm, would that be Hertfordshire? [Yes; as far as 20 miles from here.] Walking here weeks ago, I'd seen a swan's nest and looked for it today, only to find this sad sight -

Two unhatched swan's eggs

A tree or two

The Trees and Bees course at the weekend was brilliant - not only do I know an oak from an ash, but can recognise an Indian chestnut and a pawlonia and tell a few other species apart. We identified 119 types of tree (and quite a few insects) and I have photos of all of them, mostly labelled now, though there is a bit of confusion about some of them, despite extensive note taking. Several tree books are on order...

Some of my Regents Park favourites:

Poplars are called cottonwoods in America because of the white fluff  that appears this time of year

Judas tree

White pawlonia on a grey day

Learning what to look for in a leaf

Course leader Steven Falk conpares metasequoia (left) with swamp cypress.
Those "poles" beside the lake are "breathing tubes" for the swamp cypress.

"It's this one" - a tree bumblbee (they nest in holes in trees - and buildings)

Can't remember what these are, but isn't the greenery lovely, and the wild flowers