Wild Yorkshire

The shaggy parasol, Lepiota rhacodes, grows in a ragged, incomplete fairy ring in mixed woodland at The Mount, Thornes. It has a scaly cap and a ring around the stipe just like the parasol mushroom, Lepiota procera, but you can always tell them apart by the shaggy parasol’s smooth stem.

I couldn’t resist adding a wash of colour to this sketch but recently I’ve been trying to go back to inky black and white.

Drawing in black De Atramentis ink, I used stippling and a bit of cross-hatching in the shadows.

I took some of the fruit out of the bowl as it’s a shame not to see the whole pear shape when I’m drawing a pear.

There’s a lot of bellowing from the cattle grazing in the Wyke, a marshy field between the river and canal.

When we reach the old railway bridge across the Calder we can see that the whole herd is on the move.

The bull has decided that it’s time for a move. He leads them down the steep riverbank and along the edge of the river, keeping in the ...

These rather battered agaric fungi were growing at the edge of the open heath at Sutton Bank. They’re similar to fly agaric but with brown caps rather than red. The granules – about the size of porridge oats – scattered over the caps are the remains of a sheath – the volva – which disintegrated as the cap expanded.

Looking it up in Roger Phillips’ Mushr...

We’re back at Sutton Bank, sitting on a bench with a view towards Roulston Scar. Its 60-acre plateau is now home to the Yorkshire Gliding Club. 2,500 years ago the promontory was the site of the largest Iron Age hill fort in the north of England.

In line with RSPB advice, there has been no seed – sunflower, niger etc – on offer at the bird feeders this summe...