sahel nr. palmarin

setting up near Baobab where short-toed eagle had been sitting. Lots of crested larks around. The little tarmarisks, crack mud still smelling of tide gone out… little creeping saltmarsh plant, dusty grey and dried mud… brown bark.
A pair of rollers standing sentinel on baobab. Visiting a clean looking hole. A banded reptilian tail emerging from another hole and in a declivity an extended lizard escaping the intense sun. … just finding shade. Near the roller another lizard with only its back visible.(savannah monitor lizard). 2 red-billed and 2 grey hornbills. Harriers coming and going,the usual struggle ot catch the subtleties of their form.
A wheatear perching quite high on the baobab on the same level as the roller.
At one point tawny pipit, whitethroat and roller lined up as if for family photo.

Senegal 2014, senegal-fieldwork-2014

savannah nr. palmarin

27th monday… palmarin….first the savannah… palm swifts over, young woodchat, cordon bleu. zebu cattle, francolin, sunbirds on clematis type flower, abyssinian rollers.

sun still strong on back of neck, shadows lengthening… under one big bare baobab… the two neighbouring ones have the colonial bundles of thorns wrapped along the branches like huge galls or cankers… white billed buffalo weavers and these are giving out their grackle like calls.
fanned form of acacias.. splaying from central trunks… feathery leaves belie their thorny branches.
Now the harmattan blowing strong and causing them to wave about. 2 ring necked parakeets fly noisily by. This morning a senegal parrot…bright mid green above and yellow below. masked face with pale eye. Clambering around in a bush with small yellow berries.
Blue cheeked bee-eaters overhead in the baobab… at one point with a bonelli’s warbler in amongst them. also a vieillot’s barbet… brilliant red spattered over its front.
first thing african green pigeons also in the baobab tops….. softest grey green head and neck… canary yellow undersides… white bill. soft violet forewings and olive green upperparts.
Jackal seen a couple of times.
Yesterday the jackal putting up the spur winged francolins.
3 verraux’s eagle owls up in amongst the weaver nest today.. 2 yesterday and one then with prey… huge grey brown plain owls… frightening faces going with their huge talons. white lobed faces…. a tribal mask… bulging orb eyes with the upper eyelid naked pink flesh. bristles around the base of the bill forming triangle around the bill but in profile the huge nature of the bills downward projection made obvious like seeing baby barn owls with their head anatomy revealed.
black crowned tchagra. song in swooping display flight. chiffchaff hopping around in bare baobab branches.

Senegal 2014, senegal-fieldwork-2014

dry sahel near Dagana

in fiecks of horizontal dots of cattle shit a little vortex of feathers…-chestnut bellied sandgrouse, colours only slightly heightened… peach on breast, orange on pigeon head… earth in body…(back)spoon tips in umber earth, inflections of earth colours, subtly shifted.


On the plain three stand out charismatic species, the chestnut bellied sandgrouse and the 2 spp. of courser.
Variants on sandy coloration… from the orange sand as freshly dug by ants to the bleached straw of the grass… umber dung…. raised patches of ground make very low conical mound blown clean to plaster… same colour as the breast of the sandgrouse…. around the scapular spotting is the loden dung colour… with the spots themselves fine spun gold… think the leading (lower edge of the folded wing was the same colour….) so as if seeing through the bird to the soil below.
Species of plant – balanites with big fleshy alternating spines… creating a cage of thorns.. between the thorns little opposite mistletoe type leaves…. all a dirty olive green. bulbous swellings on some of the spines. ants cluster in places. Below the tree on the sand – chequered metallic beetle wing casings… or rather the whole body with the head missing… maybe the work of the shrikes. Both southern grey and woodchat.
lots of wheatears seemingly benefitting from the cattle dung that is liberally scattered over the flat plain. dark brown (dung brown)elongated backs… pointer expression… broad pale supercilium…. apricot chest…
a couple of tawny pipits.
2 hoopoes with rich dark orange… cadmium red… plus burnt sienna… expanding to broad zebra moth wings… easy breathing flared flight.
Women carrying small beach buckets on their heads…. flowing robes.
flat top carts with cross legged drivers…one leg draped over edge… whip or branch in hand to goad the donkey or pony doing the pulling… the horse has a breast band attached to the poles leading back to the cart.
zebu cattle stately procession… milky off white…docile placid (bovine) expression

Senegal 2014, senegal-fieldwork-2014

dry sahel west of richard toll

drive east to richard toll..
harriers coasting in front of starling type mists of qualia.
. the drier landscapes…shock to see mass of people going about their daily business (after no people in Djuges)… pulling off onto dirt track….
trees surround what would have been a larger pool… now just the relicts of rushy growth… (at lunchtime flushing 3 nightjars that flew just a short distance before crashing onto ground… slit eyes staying wary).
at the pool plenty of doves and finchy things coming in as well as intermediate heron and a squacco…
2 tree pipits, yellow wagtail. speckled pigeoon, laughing dove, african mourning dove… namaquas and eventually 4 turtle doves.
dry sahel. bleached grass naples yellow, rich sand, Indian red.

the disturbed nightjars.
the last of the water.. cracked mud rendered into boulder clods… doves the focus hoping for turtles.. the big grey speckled pigeon.. dried blood mask and cracked skin breast streaks… stellar spotting arcs on the wings….
african mourning dove… a rich blue grey … red eye ring. …
some young namaqua doves… high domed forehead… spotting… whippy winged blown flight… flahs of deep bronze red flight feathers.
eventually the turtles coming down… a worn Indian red on the back … red around eyes… sore eyes… soft warm grey ground to head…. small vulnerable head… neck for wringing. blinking flight, open and shut. to stasis… stop dead wary, watchful… waddle to edge to drink.
quealia queue up in bush …. a bank of finches… they came down in a wave like a curtain… nervous hopping sips.
One cordon bleu… african silver bill a plain presence… 2 cut throat finches. the currant eyed sudan golden sparrows… sulphur yellow featureless round heads… sherbet lollipop. Rufous tan backs.
disturbed long tailed nightjars… sat on the sand… eye rims like a skinned bird… when opened a huge gelatinous seal eye… deliquescent…. outer space;….. a comb of stiff feathering arcs the eye ridge down to the upper mandible… with the throat pouch well back… engoulevant…

Senegal 2014, senegal-fieldwork-2014

Djoudj sahel

21st tuesday-  start by walking along the edge of the large acacias at the edge of the pond. Odd warblers flicking in and out. chiffchaffs and olivaceous.. 2 hornbills in the tops. Fish eagle on nest? canary coloured sudan golden sparrows … lemon/sulphur yellow and tan backs. Calling all around me now in another block of acacias whipped by hot dry wind (a subalpine warbler blown from one acacia to another)
These small acacias with grey brown trunks… ragged and snapped… dirty coffee timber… feathered leaflets emerge from thorned base.
wheatear very dark. wagtails rasping tseeps as they are put up;
Spotting crowned crane flock of c. 30 on the edge of acacias…. craning forward, showing off, stretch and then seemed to be excited by the wind and bouncing up and down again and again with broad sprung wings fully stretched… white forewing up and under. Black down the back A split coin for face, pink below, white on top. bulging black forehead.

22nd wednesday… roadside stop for turtle doves…. salvadora, rufous scrub robin,… huge flocks of qualia…. golden sparrows. subalpine.

sand martins … flickering back beat, shaded underwings… forward… glide
….. The huge numbers of birds making the air electrically alive. qualias, sand martins and doves. electric rattle of sand martin.
———————
23rd thursday – sundown… constant stream of sand martins and then waves of yellow wagtails pouring west into orange sky…. dry ground gives off warm glow… silhouettes of acacias.. their leaves folded changing their character… filigree’d.

closing shop to the intense sun。
crowned cranes calling loudly … struggling to remember what they were…. counted 28 flying into silvery wet area….
another call conundrum was the gonolek first thing….

morning – burbling of babblers i the palms around the swimming pool. cool….

…. back at Gaunth… call of the fish eagle… decreasing shadow sheltering under acacia… dry wind keeps it cool … drying out nasal cavity..
Larks and the canary type golden sparrows blow around in tight flocks.
A long tailed starling just landed in small acacia.. tail flared by the wind.
The crowned cranes are feeding off in the distance.. prodding with dibber bills, puffs of sandy soil blown away with each poke. Suddenly erect with some alarm noise… warthogs trotting past…
earlier on 3 jackals seemingly resting.
The acacia leaves a dry green … hanging in clusters like laburnum pods.
They emerge from the parched soil… a sandy clay. The goosefooty sueda a dull oatmeal up close… or like my lodden socks… further away the clumps are more ginger sacking.
buzz of fly. echoey electric nasal call of starling. bright eyed and shining blue green.
moon hangs a C half full tilted 2 to 8 oclock.

Senegal 2014, senegal-fieldwork-2014

Djoudj Gainthe pond

afternoon here after morning by roadside with turtle doves …  warthogs up to their shoulders in water grazing on lotus. Night Herons hidden away in fringe of tararisks and acacias.Squaccos emerging. Purple heron, great white and little egret gathering around hog.
Black rail clambering over submerged roots. red legs , yellow bill. laat seen in South Africa under splattering hippo.

Uncategorized

somerset levels flooding
Scan000824
lapwings & golden plover
After dropping my niece off at her new house in Wells I spent the end of the afternoon at Greylake … knowing that it was mostly under water but thought it might be interesting. . just the tops of bunds above water (often only lines of straw coloured vegetation marking them).. gates and fences and odd trees rising above the flood.

On the grassy higher bunds masses of lapwing and golden plover huddled.. flighty, and at the edges starlings and winter thrushes looking for creatures forced to the margins  or maybe chaff washed up.
My sketches  are cyphers for the 100’s and thousands of birds that were actually on these islets. I reckon around a 1000 golden plover across the marshes… not sure about lapwing. Towards last light the ground became covered with a writhing carpet of starlings, covering what ground there was. Seemed like some last minute, wash & brushup, come snack, come drink before bedtime.  The lapwings like face painted pebbles amongst a sea of chittering starlings.

Scan000825
lapwings & golden plover
Scan000827
lapwings, golden plover & starlings
Uncategorized

mini meadow 2013

(written at the end of 2013)
We’ve got a plot of grass on our allotment that is about the same footprint as my studio, c. 4 x 4 metres. It’s been there for a long time as a kind of empty lawn space, mowed by our allotment neighbour before I came to Bristol and in recent years by me. Last year I saw the basal leaves of a couple of common-spotted orchids and that got me thinking that we shouldn’t be mowing it and that it could be cultivated as a mini meadow.

Yellow rattle – Last autumn I mowed ‘the meadow’ as close to the ground as I could and then raked it (I think I was only using a fine rake, now I would use the more vigourous cultivating tool), then sowed yellow rattle onto what  was pretty well scalped ground. This spring I watched anxiously to  see if the rattle would come up. Because the spring was so cold it was really slow to appear, along with everything else. In the end it came up really well.
Seemed like a good food plant for bumblebees in particular. It grew particularly vigorously amongst a patch of clover.
I finally cut the meadow, when almost all flowers had gone over on August 16th.

grasses – I figured out most of the grass species on the plot. The tallest one was false oat grass that had purple-brown flowers quite early on. A rye grass of some kind. Small amounts of cocksfoot. Later on came red fescue.
Annoyingly lost my list, I think there were 2 others…
Yorkshire fog was one of them… this seems like the key for the presence of the small skippers.

other flowers – on the north east side of the plot there was a lot of clover which the rattle thrived amongst. Self heal. Cut-leaved (?) cranesbill. Creeping buttercup. Ragwort. Hogweed. Early on plenty of daisies, dandelions and narrow leaved plantain. Later on greater plantain too. The orange hawkweed, fox & cubs that I’m trying to get rid of.  Not a very exciting list and though I sowed a load of a limestone flora seed mix none of it came to anything… maybe because of sowing in spring and with such density of grass.

butterflies – the most interesting species that really seemed to benefit from the existence of the meadow was small skipper. I think we got up to around 10 individuals that were usually on the ragwort flowers.
2 small coppers behaved in a similar way.
A single marbled white seemed very exotic, just passing through.
Plenty of gatekeepers, ringlets, just one or two meadow browns (which I was surprised at… thought there would be more).
Commas, red admirals, small tortoiseshells and peacocks tend to be basking more on the open areas rather than on the meadow area… except for feeding on dandelions early on. There was a procession of peacock caterpillars, not sure of date….

moths… both cinnabar and burnet moth adults were around but no evidence of any young. I thought I saw the burnet moth egg laying but never any caterpillars or chrysalises….  The odd silver y was resting amongst the grasses later on.

I didn’t really scrutinise the hymenoptera… I think most bumblebees were buff-tailed (they were definitely nesting under the garden pond).

beetles – lots of the fat thighed flower beetle oedemera nobilis… seemed to like buttercups. A more long horned type beetle was on the hogweed but i failed to identify it .

A lot of this is good for me to note down just to encourage myself to look harder next year and keep better notes.

 

18/04/13 – sowing the meadow mixed seed that had arrived from Emorsgate.
Just raking the triangle and then hosing it… On the meadow sowing and then careful watering trying to sluice the seed down to soil…

29/05/13 – The yellow rattle is just starting to flower on the ‘meadow’ and the orchid spikes must be not far off showing first flowers.

03/06/13 – The yellow rattle now really flowering… the orchids just getting first pink buds today. The meadow flora very limited still…. cut leaved cranesbill, a buttercup species… the single hogweed… plantain… daisies and dandelions… yet to really try to name the grasses but would like to try. Started to pull out the ‘fox & cubs’ which just started flowering.

01/07/13 – On the allotment the first proper flowers coming on the self heal. The very fine reddish ‘whorled’ grass.. quite low seeming to be increasing.

08/07 – Ringlets the main butterfly on the allotment… self heal flowering…burnet moth egg laying ? on grasses in meadow.

10/07 – A skipper seen a couple of times….

12/07 – comma today and numbers of ringlets. A cinnabar moth adult yesterday… The skipper yesterday evening definitely small. …

15/07- small skippers on the meadow (1 [ ?)…

18/07 – ragwort coming into full flower over the last week the skippers have been feeding on them… 6 in superficial count this morning.

25/07 – Still small skippers up on the allotment… a cinnabar moth yesterday.

25/07 – small copper on allotment in afternoon

27/07 – 2 small coppers on the allotment…peregrine circling high, long-winged conehead singing, and other grasshopper sp… meadow? calling.

17/08 – crudely cutting the meadow with shears….

29/08 – Nature notes.. shaking out the orchid seeds… Lots of whites flittering over the allotments..

02/09 – Mowing the allotment meadow right down to ground.. trying to guard ant hills.

Scan000648
ragwort & yellow rattle

meadow-2013

redwings on holly

Scan000799
redwings on holly

Little nature watching over the christmas/New year time… the redwings still around though. Wishing all visitors to this site all best for 2014.

Uncategorized

redwing on rowan

Scan000796
redwing on rowan
Scan000797
redwing on rowan
Scan000798
redwing on rowan
Going back to the brushed line monoprint but keeping the underlying blocks simpler. Partly doing this to remind myself not to lose the brushing.

Uncategorized

« Previous Page — Next Page »