This page for one of my articles is a joint effort: the cut-out images from newspapers and magazines were collected by a young worsted cloth mender who worked in Valley Mills, Pudsey, over a century ago. Sophia Barnett folded them away in her 1904 school prize, a copy of Mrs Gaskell’s Cranford, which I bought from a second-hand shop in Horbury in the early 1970s...

A couple of tawny mining bees were making a start on their burrows at the edge of the riverside path.

By the canal towpath a few common dog-violets are in flower.

And a patch of germander speedwell.

Red deadnettle has been conspicuous for a while and now a patch of white deadnettle is coming into flower. Deadnettle it might be bu...

There’s a bit more enthusiasm in birdsong now. The strident see-saw of the great tit, the varied riffs of the song thrush and more substance to the song of the robin. At Brodsworth this morning we heard the laughing call of a green woodpecker – but didn’t spot the bird itself.

A wood pigeon poddles along, following a potential mate. She’s not impressed. She kee...

It’s time to get those boots muddy again. My regular ‘Wild Yorkshire’ nature diary in February’s ‘The Yorkshire Dalesman’ on the alleged benefits of yomping through mud and splashing through puddles. No, honestly, you’ll enjoy it . . .