Snowdrops or snowbells?

Posted on April 5, 2025 Posted in Memories, UncategorizedTagged Flowers, Gallanthus, Gardening, Memory, snowbells, Snowdrops, Species, Time, Trees, Winter2 Comments

I know they are from the Gallanthus group of plants but I think these might be snowbells not snowdrops. They have bigger flowers than usual and more prominent markings. But there are many variations of these lovely little friendly flowers, and they look great spread in carpets under the bare canopy of winter trees. They only have a short flowering period before they go over and that’s the best time to split their clumps of roots “in the green” so that they become less congested and flower more freely.

Owls?

Posted on June 19, 2022 Posted in Sketching, UncategorizedTagged Art, Drawing, Endangered, Environment, Life, Nature, Owls, Species, Tawny owlLeave a comment

Too-wit too-woo…

Never hear Tawny owls anymore. We used to have a couple of them up the hill. The males make one sound, Too-wit, then the female answers Too-woo! It’s so evocative of spring, but it doesn’t happen anymore. So many birds are dissappearing, but men don’t seem bothered, they’d rather fight wars. As someone recently said instead of spending money to go to Mars maybe they should spend it on planting forests, or supporting the environment. Endangered means possible extinction. Let’s do something about it.

Dragon heads

Posted on October 7, 2021 Posted in Sketching, UncategorizedTagged Art, College, Design, Dragon, Drawing, Fun, Illustration, Scales, Sketching, Species, Wings2 Comments

Thinking about dragons and how they look? For a mythical beast there are lots of ‘species’. Ancient Chinese and Japanese, medieval dragons battled by saints, dragons in stories by authors like Anne McCaffrey, films like ‘ how to train your dragon’, with a dragon with a catlike head (toothless).

Then, logically, the wings wouldn’t really get it off the ground. But a mythical beast would be magical and easily able to fly. How about having wings like a dragonfly? Gossamer and transparent? And does the dragon have a scaled body or could it have fur?

Lots to think about!

For the birds

Posted on July 6, 2020July 6, 2020 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Birds, Blogging, Cherries, Environment, Fledglings, Food, Fun, Garden, Nature, Seeds, Species, TreeLeave a comment

The blackbirds sing,

The thrushes too

The robins nest,

Their fledglings new.

A magpie there

And pigeons too?

They congregate

And feed on seed.

Blue tits

and house sparrows,

All had their nests.

Feeding them all

Is our happy chore.

Yes eat your fill,

Of cherries ripe.

We’ve had ours now

The rest, enjoy.

Mallaband-Brown

Tag: Species

Snowdrops or snowbells?

Owls?

Dragon heads

For the birds