April's Antics

What a beautiful April it's been! We've been very lucky with the weather so far this month here in Yorkshire. So what have I been up to?

Art-wise, I'm plugging away at commissions in the background in and amongst wildlife surveying. Here's a taster of one I'm working on at the moment, I don't want to give too much away!

I also had the opportunity to attend another of Pollyanna Pickering's art talks. Pollyanna currently has a rather beautiful exhibition displayed at Haworth Art Gallery, Accrington and to launch the event she gave a very interesting presentation on her life's travels in search of special subjects for her work, a job many wildlife artists can only dream of! Such a privilege to be able to sketch animals in their natural environments and Pollyanna does a stirling job of capturing their characters in her famous paintings.

A couple of pics from the exhibition:

The warmer weather means only one thing in the world of ecology, survey-time! Great crested newts are well on the move now having stirred from hibernation before they head to their breeding ponds. It's always worth the late nights to see these fascinating little dinosaurs with their striking belly markings! I never tire of them. We also see other amphibians on our surveys including smooth and palmate newts, frogs and toads.

A handsome male with his crest along his back,
not quite so impressive out of the water!

Every newt has individual belly markings...

This handsome chap was in one of our bottle traps this week
his crest was particularly large, a fine specimen

You can just make out the iridescent flash on the males' tails,
a helpful giveaway when you're torching a pond at night!

Spot the Newt! Clue is in the last photo ;)

It's not all about newts though, we're also out for the first bat surveys of the year as well as surveys for water vole, badger, otter and other protected species. And plants too! Here are a few flower shots from this month...

Marsh-marigolds

Lungwort

Our native Bluebell

Lesser celandines

The arum, or lords and ladies, a favourite of mine!

I've also been trying to keep a hand in with my bird ringing training, hoping for lots more exciting sessions in store this year! A few birds from my trainer's garden. 21 birds, 8 species and 4 retraps, not a bad morning.

Started the morning off with this control female Blackcap

A noisy Song Thrush

And a female Bullfinch who was quite happy to stay a wee while :)

And then there is of course our loveable fluffball of a German Shepherd, a wonderful excuse for getting outside even more than usual! This hedge-surfing Yellowhammer was particularly welcome a couple of weeks back, so lovely to see them about once more.

Weee!

Toby having a game of ball. We've been working up to these heavier impact games on hard tarmac as his muscles have strengthened a bit. Having only been used to short walks his fitness levels were down but he's a much stronger lad now and loving his food!

 

A bit picture heavy this month, I really should post more often instead of cramming it all into a monthly post, no idea where the time goes!

Ta-ra for now folks, 

Meg x

Spring's a sprung!

Life seems to have turned into even more of a rollercoaster than usual since we got Toby, certainly not a bad thing! Feels like we've had him years already, he's a cheeky little boy with a penchant for gloves, socks and anything he can nick out of a waster paper bin that he thinks will get a reaction! He's not reached full maturity yet in German Shepherd terms, though he's not far off. Still very much a puppy!

So this weekend seeing as Saturday was the Spring Equinox, myself, a friend and of course Toby went for a drive into the Yorkshire Dales for a lovely walk starting at Horton-in-Ribblesdale, middling at Helwith Bridge and up the side of Pen-Y-Ghent, one of the famous Three Yorkshire Peaks. Toby is being eased into this country bumpkin lark having come from a city background and so stiles are a seemingly new concept to him. When he first arrived, jumping over anything seemed fairly alien but he's cottoned on quick! A couple of stiles en-route looked something like this... >>>
Now anyone who goes walking with dogs will know how awkward it is getting dogs over this design of stile, I expect border collies can jump in one leap but, as I've experienced with Madam Maya the Malamute, some dogs just ain't going to make it. Regardless of managing to walk up normal stairs, these stiles are just not cutting the mustard...The first one we encountered involved me picking up Toby (all nearly 32kgs of him!) and bundling him up the stile in a less than graceful fashion. At the next one of these stiles there was a gate next to it but the entrance was blocked by farm machinery...my friend was trying to coax Toby round the back of it and down the side of a wall to get through the gate but he was just looking at us daft. As I realised I was going to have to go back over the stile and lead him round Toby then instead decided we'd faffed about far too much and simply scaled the 5ft dry stone wall...the biggest jump I've seen him manage yet! #Proud moment# All this exercise was clearly paying off and building up his muscles as he wasn't fit enough to manage a large jump like that a few weeks ago!

Anyway I digress...A few photos from the walk, taken from my phone so my apologies for the quality!

A beautiful white stream...

Last time we did this walk this stream was frozen so it was hard to see it's true colour. Little did we know it was full of creamy limestone deposits resulting in gorgeous crystal clear water flowing into the River Ribble.

View of Pen-Y-Ghent

Toby enjoying one of many stiles!

The River Ribble

Swaledales

Panorama and a Tobydog

Lovely views were had of dipper, curlew, oystercatcher and soaring buzzard. A stop off in Settle on the way home for a cheeky bag of chips to keep the hunger pangs away, a cracking end to a lovely day out.

On Sunday, with such blue skies overhead, I thought I'd bring out my old faithful motorbike for a spring clean. I managed about 15 minutes of scrubbing before getting bored, I was never one for making her sparkle, as she only gets mucky again! I'm afraid I'm a firm believer that life is too short for cleaning and bikes are made for riding after all! Instead I grabbed my camera as I couldn't resist a photoshoot. Toby was obliging as usual...

My lovely Thump, slightly cleaner!

Enjoying the sun, tis hard being a dog!

Pretty and he knows it...

Smiler!

So lucky to own these two beauties!

Then of course the word on everyone's lips on Friday had been the eclipse, it was pretty cloudy here for the duration of it, these were the shots I managed but nothing to shout about I'm afraid!

In other news, I am drawing quietly in the background, a couple of commissions are keeping me occupied. A spot of bird ringing is being managed in and among work days which is grand. With any luck I'll be close to getting my C-licence by the end of the year, if I can get the ringing time in!

The ecological survey season is just around the corner and I will have more than enough to keep me busy in that department so it's lovely to be able to make the most of my spare time walking and drawing before life becomes the hectic ball of fun that comes with surveying great crested newts, bats, otters and more! I love having the excuse to be out and about when nature is waking up. Nearly stood on these two on one dog walk...

Ribbety giggedy

Snowdrops and crocuses

I've rambled on long enough this morning but lots to catch up on! Until next time, I shall leave you with this two headed daffodil, it sprouted just the other day :)

Enjoy your start to spring all, can't believe it's nearly Easter!

Meg x

Toby's first week in his new home

Our lives have been turned upside down by our new furball, but we've loved every minute of having Toby and feeling very lucky to be able to provide this lovely boy with a home. In the space of seven days he's been everywhere with us, in two different cars, to the pub, to a busy reservoir, played in snow, played in rivers, mud and fields, met two new playmates AND a trip to the vets! Safe to say he's been a gem and settled in fabulously well, so pleased.

Some pics from Toby's first week...

Sleepy

Surveying the Tarn

Toby-luvvin'

First ride in the Disco...

Sleepy (again

The above picture is from today, we introduced Toby to Echo, a rather petite German Shepherd belonging to good friends of ours. Echo is also a rescue GSD and very vocal with other dogs. After initially barking her head off around Toby we went on a long walk to tire them both out with the intention of letting them both off once on neutral territory in a nice big field. Sure enough both dogs got on pretty well considering Echo's excitement tendencies, Toby took it all in his stride and we felt confident enough to let Echo in the house. After initial sniffing about the place both dogs settled down beautifully, very happy owners!!

Here pups! Great recall :)

With his new lady friend Echo

Toby has also been introduced to Maya the Malamute, another great success! So two new (lady) playmates for Toby = yet more exercise for our new pup :D A Valentine's week indeed!

The house feels complete with the addition of our canine friend...though I fear we may never be free of fur again...

Just a few spare hairs!

A new dog, a ringing tick and the last of the puffins!

We've had an exciting few days recently, welcoming a new addition to the family...Meet Toby-Wan Kenobi, well just Toby really - he's a white "champagne"  German Shepherd.

We've rehomed him and he seems to have settled in very well much to our relief! He's very, VERY furry. This was after 40 minutes work on him...

...and we appear to have a spare dog! This is mostly his undercoat, amazingly soft, the birds will make good use of it for nesting material come spring :)

Having had a German Shepherd before and knowing what fantastically intelligent and loyal companions they are, we had to have another. Toby certainly doesn't disappoint. Here he is on a walk today.

In other news, I've got my first ringing tick of the year, a mighty fine male Coot. Such strong birds with amazing legs and feet! He naturally left me a nice rich and green present on my leg as a thankyou for the silver bling ;)

And finally I'm able to show you the last updates on the progress of my Atlantic Puffin portrait as it is now...drum roll please....FINISHED! I only started it a year ago... Plenty of hours have gone into this piece of work I can tell you, worth it in the end I hope you agree. It's been a lot of fun bringing these quirky little sea parrots to life!

Seeing puffins in my sleep...

And here's the finished artwork, all framed up!

And for something a bit different, here's a short video of me in action, working on the puffin colony...

That's me for now, catch up again soon!

Meg x