I walked a regular lockdown route today. In spring Tolly and I walked often in casual shoes across bone dry fields. Today these fields squelch and hold some very large puddles. This is a new opportunity for me to paint landscapes incorporating areas of water. I painted one such field today not far from the Holbeck. The hedgerows were full of redwings and fieldfares, nervous and quick to take flight as I approached. In spring we could stand in this spot and listen to yellowhammers, skylarks, lesser whitethroats and garden warblers singing. Lapwings displayed over this very field and curlews called nearby.
This chorus has been replaced by redwings and fieldfares from Scandinavia. There is no substitute for walking a regular route to really experience the contrasts in the natural world through the seasons. I looked at rose hips in the hedgerow today; hips from pollinated wild rose flowers that Tolly and I had paused to smell back in June; today I could recall that subtle smell. Similarly some branches dense with frosted sloes, the fruit of blackthorn blossom we had admired back in early April. Some of these we picked over a month ago for a couple of bottles of sloe gin which are now maturing in a cool larder.
A great spotted woodpecker ‘crashed’ onto the peanut feeder this morning scattering all the smaller birds. Though reasonably common in our garden they never fail to impress me with their pied and crimson markings. After feeding the woodpecker rested for a while on a trunk very close to my studio allowing these studies.

