View from an exam room

Its exam season and I'm doing some invigilating at Lancaster University. The other day I forgot to bring anything to read, but I had a black biro pen, so I drew the trees next to the fairly uninspiring building site out the window. It entertained me for a surprisingly long time, although I think I frightened the student just in front of the window. I was considering drawing the students but it would have been too obvious. I'm fairly pleased with how the drawing turned out. It sort of reflects the bleak atmosphere of an exam room, and my feeling which I've always had, whether sitting exams or supervising them, that what's outside the window is always of greater interest.
Maybe would have been better if I'd included the window frames - works better when seen 'framed' in the sketchbook.

I've had loads of really great bird encounters lately but unfortunately have not drawn any of them.
On the 1st of April I was walking by the River Wenning, just west of Hornby, where it meets the River Lune, and saw clouds of acrobatic swallow like birds, which confused me, as it was still freezing cold, and too early in the year for swallows. It turns out that they were sand martins, which return from their migration earlier than swallows and house martins. There are sand martins living all along this stretch of river, and this afternoon I spent five minutes watching them darting over the water catching insects, and popping in and out of the holes they nest in, on the opposite bank. They're lovely little birds and were zooming right past me.

On the 11th of April I saw a Marsh Harrier in the RSPB reserve Leighton Moss, which is about 15 miles north of here in the beautiful South Lakes. Marsh Harriers are quite rare, as they live in reed beds, which are nationally very scarce. They are a bit smaller than buzzards, and a totally different shape. Have a look at http://www.rspb.org.uk/wildlife/birdguide/name/m/marshharrier/index.aspx. It was circling round and round just above the reeds, hunting, occasionally diving down out of site. He (I think) was getting frequently harried by buzzards and crows, guess they don't get on too well.
There was also a couple of Great Crested Grebes, nesting just in front of the hide. Also really beautiful birds.

Finally, well, for this entry, we have a nestful of baby house martins, conveniently residing just above my study window. The babies screech and cheep every few minutes when they get fed.

Elm twig

This watercolour sketch is of an elm twig, with its flowers. Elms flower before the leaves come out. This particular tree is a lovely large one, in a nearby field. I'd passed it several times but never before realised it was an elm - my parents were visiting and Dad identified it. I was recently reading about elms in Robert Macfarlane's lovely book 'The Wild Places'. He writes of how until relatively recently, elms used to be a really distinctive feature of the English countryside, as can be seen from old landscape paintings. John Constable painted many landscapes with elm trees. Elms were planted to mark waypoints, and lived to be hundreds of years old. This link shows a painting Constable made of an elm's trunk: http://tinyurl.com/y3hrczy.

Sadly, Dutch elm disease has decimated elm trees, and often the only ones left surviving are small ones, inside hedges. The beetles that bear the fungi causing the disease apparently target larger trees. Dutch elm disease arrived on the south coast of England in the late 1960's, in a shipment of logs from the US; and within ten years about 30 million died. Large elms are really scarce now. I think I will draw the Galgate elm tree later in the summer, when it is in leaf.

First sketch in the new house : )

Happy Easter. We have just moved into our new house, near Lancaster, NW England. This is Johnny 'relaxing' with his iPhone after a hard evenings unpacking. And Ashby just relaxing.

Moving has been a fairly protracted event, as we drove from Vienna and stopped off four times along the way in Salzburg, Trier, Brussels, and Leamington Spa. Springtime had already arrived in Vienna, the Saturday before we left was a lovely 19˚C. I was playing with Vienna Pipes and Drums in the St Patrick's Day Parade, my farewell gig. It was also lovely weather in Trier, an old town on the river Mosel, near the border of Luxembourg. Unfortunately things degenerated from then on; we returned to the UK in time to experience bitter north winds and snow...

I'm renting some studio space in Hornby, and am currently setting things up. It's situated in a beautiful location in the Lune Valley, east of Lancaster. Just across the fields is the confluence of the rivers Wenning and the Lune. Hornby is situated close to the border with North Yorkshire, and as I drive there I get lovely views across the fells, including the prominent hill Ingleborough. Also a great area for wildlife, I've often seen kingfishers on the Lune and there have been recent reports of otters. : ) Some drawings coming soon.