Summer Towpath

BLACKBERRY has been in flower for a month or two. A small grass, a Bent Grass perhaps, has flowerheads so fine and sparse that they appear as a pinkish mist around taller vegetation.

Common Ragwort is just coming into full, yellow, flower and, as always at this time of year, the orange and black caterpillars of the Cinnabar Moth are feeding on it, particularly on the flowers. The plant is poisonous, as are the caterpillars, with their warning stripes.

The stout thistle-like heads of Burdock are now in flower. I tried a can of Dandelion and Burdock the other day, made in Pontefract and still made containing an extract of these plants. The taste reminded me of childhood, there was, and probably still is, a sort of hard, brownish pencil-shaped stick of rock which had a similar taste.

The summer greens may be duller but there are now plenty of purple and yellow in the tall summer flowers. On the banking by the lock there are magenta drifts, a little over-emphasised in my sketch, of Rosebay Willowherb a plant which is encouraged by the occasional fire.

At our feet a small brown animal dashes into the grasses, probably a vole.

Richard Bell,
wildlife illustrator
E-mail; 'richard@daelnet.co.uk'