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Creeping UpSunday 17th September 2000, 1/2, West Yorkshire |
VIRGINIA CREEPER has climbed to the top of the chimney on this Victorian house. It has started turning to its autumn colour and is already redder than the terra-cotta brick and chimney pots.
As I sketch it through the window of the house next door, I notice that attached to the outside of the glass there is an object the size of a very small pea.I bring it in to sketch and, to my surprise, it springs to life. It is a tiny snail, a perfect miniature, which stretches out its eye stalks and crawls around on my sketchbook, crossing the drawing several times as I draw, but luckily leaving only the faintest of slime trails.
Against the light of the window it is translucent, but its shell does seem to have the start of a streaky pattern. Perhaps this is a young Brown-lipped Snail, the most conspicuous of snails alongside footpaths and in some gardens. 
Richard Bell,
wildlife illustrator
E-mail; 'richard@willowisland.co.uk'
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