Waterfowl |
Richard Bell's Wild West Yorkshire nature diary, Friday, 26th October, 2007 |
IT'S
WORTH taking binoculars on the walk to the post office; this morning by the
remains of the old weir a grey wagtail flits from rock to
rock, three moorhens swim
like twitchy black galleons across the calm water upstream and, as usual, there
are a few mallards hanging around together amongst
the rocks. We try to make the curved end of a piece of driftwood into the head
of a cormorant; it isn't but, as we're watching, one flies
off, heading downstream.
Just
across the Horbury end of the bridge a few sycamores were recently
lopped and a steel framework was errected. This is now clad in insulated
panels
and
finished
off
with grey
corrugated
metal sheets. A notice has gone up to explain that it is an 'exciting office
development'.
Gardeners'
WorldFriday night and, as usual, we watch Gardeners’ World, hoping that we’ll be inspired to do something in the garden this weekend.
As I’ve drawn nothing all day, I try to sketch the presenters during the half hour programme. Not only do they move around a lot as they dig, prune and plant but, in contrast with the early days of the programme, when television cameras trundled around on trollies, the camera moves around quite a bit too, diving down into the herbage or zipping off on a hop-picker over the hedges on frequent occasions. Providing its not done to excess, as in Nigella Lawson's current Fast Food series, it gives you an impression of the garden as a three-dimensional space.
This evening (from left to right) Joe Swift, Monty Don and Carol Klein are at the Berryfields Garden while Sarah Raven (bottom left) is out and about looking at soft fruit and fruit trees, some of which you could fit into the smallest garden.