The Strands
Wild West Yorkshire, Monday 11 October 2010
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The Strands
A COVEY of grey partridges has just flown up from the Strands, which is a marshy field between the River Calder and the Calder & Hebble Navigation. The partridges, about ten of them - have settled in the winter wheat below Strands Farm.
A yellow crusty lichen - Lecanora or Xanthoria, I guess - grows on a stub of an elder by the towpath (right).
Three herons stand close together at the edge of the small flash on the Wyke (another marshy field). A cormorant flies over. A crow (or jackdaw?) skirmishes with one of the gulls. Canada geese add a stately parkland element to a scene of wild marsh and rough pasture, grazed by bullocks.
You can view my original sketchbook page (right), drawn and written entirely on location by downloading this PDF file 111010.pdf (450 KB)
I like to combine hand-written text with my drawings and the process of designing a web-page makes it difficult to keep the two together. Most of my sketchbook pages don't include so much text but it was a format I enjoyed using in my wildlife sketchbooks when I was a student and I feel I'd like to try it again now.
Richard Bell, illustrator
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